Futuristic ARK: Survival of the Fittest (Closed)

[Darkling0096]

Jack looked around, this area was unfamiliar and weird. "Vera?" No answer, "Roan? Anna?" No one. He didn't even have his mate heart anymore, he was too far from her. "Alright, Jack, think," he opened his map and his eyes bugged out of his head when he realized that the new area that popped up was incredibly far from home. "Oh, no." He was on his own. "Alright, think, you need tools, shelter, and food, in that order." He looked around and picked up a rock, bashing a tree down for wood and thatch and making a pickaxe, then getting flint to make an axe. "Back in the stone age," he sighed without realizing what that meant as he started searching.

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Anna felt a painful chomp on her leg as a megalodon bit. It didn't sever her leg, it was a glancing but painful bite, but it brought her attention into focus that she started swimming as fast as she could to get away from the thing. She grabbed onto an ichthyosaurus and let it pull her to the beaches of an island, where she was able to crawl out of the water and survey the damage. There was a tooth embedded in her thigh, and it burned from the saltwater. "Roan?", she looked around but saw only herbivores, "Vera? Jack?" No answer. She hurried to bind her injuries with fiber and palm leaves, using a stick for a crutch as she looked around. She needed tools, she needed food, and she needed to find her friends.

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Roan seemed momentarily safe, at least. He was cold but not frostbitten, and there were no predators in the immediate area. But he would need tools and shelter if he was to survive for long. It was daytime, and as he had learned early on, a chill at midday would probably turn to deadly cold at night.

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Vera likewise found she had no immediate dangers. The lake she was near was currently devoid of predators, and resources were plentiful. She was back to square one, just as she was when she and Anna first spawned on the west beaches.

 

[Silverwings]

Roan took a breath before looking around. He has one big problem. Stones weren't easy to find in the snowy area, even by the water. He sighed and made his way toward the volcano, "We know for a fact there's stones there..."

Vera made quick work gathering supplies and making tools. She frowned when she opened the implant. The first thing she noticed was that her gestation bar was gone, "No..."

 

[Darkling0096]

The further inland Roan went, and the closer he got to the volcano, the more it was apparent that without a fast mount or a strong companion tame he was in danger. Raptors could be avoided by climbing trees, but scorpions and sabers appeared on the mountains, and in the distance he could see more of those gigantosaurs that had attached the humans and brought them down. Stones were plentiful for sure, everything from small rocks he could pick up all the way up to big boulders he'd have to mine with his tools to break down.


Among other things that had gone away, Vera also found that she no longer possessed a Mate Boost, and she couldn't tell where her tribemates were. But she was close to the old wooden fort if she checked her map, which oddly seemed to have come with her when she respawned. The only thing that had.

-----------------------

Jack made very quick work of finding a sheltered area to build a thatch hut and a campfire, and start planning. He didn't really know where he was, but he knew that the beaches weren't safe this far inland. He saw carnos and allos wandering the beaches, and spinos in the water. And even inland he'd seen sabercats and scorpions running about in the trees, and microraptors like Lil' Chicken waiting to jump at him. He hadn't yet learned to look up, and hadn't yet noticed the thylacoleos in the trees quite ready to snatch him if he passed by. "Alright, Jack," he sighed and looked at what he had. He'd made a bow and some arrows, and killed a parasaur, so he had meat, and he was working on cooking that while he worked.

Of all people Jack knew how fragile thatch was, he didn't feel safe in anything weaker than wood, so that was next on the list. Nor did he feel safe on the ground. He knew he had an engram for something called a wooden tree platform, perhaps he could use that to build shelter up in these giant trees? But he needed a smithy to make that, and it was very resource intensive. That would take time, and he didn't have time, he needed a mount to move quickly and carry supplies, and he needed it quick.


Anna quickly stripped bushes of their berries, scoffing down everything edible but narco and stimberries to help heal her injuries. Tintoberries had medicinal properties, she knew that from how she had helped Roan's bruises. Making tools, she went up to the main part of the herbivore island to make shelter and find something more substantial to eat, dodging the tailswings of oblivious stegos and ankies, dodging between the feet of oblivious brontos. How this small island could support so many large herbivores, Anna didn't know, and Anna didn't care, she just had to get to safety so she could heal and plan. She should probably make a boat so she could get back to the mainland when she was equipped, and look for the others.

 

[Silverwings]

Roan made quick work gathering some supplies. He determined thst he wouldn't stick around for long. He made his tools and made his way back down to the river, following a different path. He was now where the Rex had been at one point. He didnt even know how he got there, "Wait... I know this area..."

Vera made her way around. Following the water, she found her way to the beach. She recognized the area. It wasn't long before Vera found her way to their old base. She smiled big. "Oh, home sweet home!"

 

[Darkling0096]

Indeed Roan did know the area, it was just upriver from a waterfall to the north of the camp that had been destroyed! Roan seemed to have respawned closest to their destroyed home. And that probably meant scavengers coming to feed on the aftermath of the giga rampage. Indeed, there were argies and giant scorpions coming to feed on the scraps those gigas had left behind, the creatures having essentially wiped their home from the map, leaving only a few scattered foundations and debris.

Their old fortress was just as strong as ever, if covered in bird poop and plants growing up the side without anyone to maintain it in the few weeks they hadn't touched it. Inside, it was mostly the same, if horrendously empty. They'd taken everything not bolted down with them, including the beds. The crafting area was still there, but devoid of resources, and the only food remaining was some rotting meat left in one of the preserving bins.

 

[Silverwings]

Roan ran to where the cliff had overlooked the camp. Gone. It was all gone. Everything they worked so hard on. He sighed, looking around. He could try getting back to the other camp. There, he would at least have shelter. He rubbed his face, making his way around. After a while he heard the sound of grunting coming from behind him. He turned just in time to have his feet knocked out from under him by a hardheaded red moschops, "Meatloaf?"

The cute dumb little dino chirped a bit, rubbing her head on his leg. He smiled, patting her side, "I'm glad you made it, Meatloaf."

"Well, this is better than nothing," Vera muttered as she looked through all their storages that had been left there. Most of the plants had regrow, so she could easily get more resources.

 

[Darkling0096]

Meatloaf had to have been incredibly lucky to survive so long under the giga's assault, and to evade the scavengers. Argies and scorpions were dangerous carrion feeders, and they were pretty jealous when it came to eating. The noise Meatloaf made when she came out got the attention of some of them, scorpions turning on a pebble to look at the red moschops and human...


Funnily enough, the boats were still in the water, Jack had never gotten the chance to load them up as he would have liked, so the two wooden rafts still sat bobbing in the water. There were fish in the water as well, if she wanted easy meat.

 

[Silverwings]

"Let's go, Meatloaf," Roan said, climbing onto the back of the dino and sprinting with her. Despite her awkward size and run, the moschops was pretty fast. Fast enough to escape the crawl of the scorpions. Roan rode her south, toward where he remembered their first base to be.

Vera sighed, spearing a few fish for food. She decided to let it cook while she got other resources together, "I guess I'm the lucky one.. spawning here.."

 

[Darkling0096]

Roan made it back to where the first base was very quickly on Meatloaf's back. By late afternoon, he could see the wooden walls of the beachside fortress coming into view as Vera was coming back from a resource run to get fuel for the fires and materials. Meatloaf wasn't very athletic, but she could outrun most dangerous creatures on the beach as long as they avoided wandering raptors.

 

[Silverwings]

Roan smiled, seeing Vera at the old camp, "We did it, we're here!"

Vera looked over and waved, "Roan! I thought I'd never see you guys again. Is that Meatloaf?"

"Yea, I spawned pretty close to camp and found her still there. Everything else was destroyed.." Roan replied as he got off the moschops and walked up to her, "I see this place is still functional."

"I was actually just getting more resources. We didn't leave much behind but some meat. Which by the way, we have more than enough to make narcotics." Vera said as she made her way inside, "I dont know what those things are, but I bet if we had one nothing could hurt us ever."

 

[Darkling0096]

Taming one of those gigantosaurs would probably be even more of an endeavor than taming the spino, however. And likely even harder, because they were able to disable the spino before it got to them in the first place, those gigas were fast!

None of the other two seemed to have arrived, they were likely much farther away when they respawned. That meant they didn't have the luxury Roan and Vera had of a pre-built base to rebuild from, they were out there going from scratch.

 

[Silverwings]

"Well.. I dont see thst happening without birds, so its off the table right now.." Roan said, "We should try and find the others though."

"Any ideas?" Vera asked. Roan thought for a moment, "Tame a few dinos and wander?"

 

[Darkling0096]

Searching with dinosaurs was definitely an option, but they needed to find dinos they could use as mounts. There were of course the usual herbivores in the area, trikes and carbonemys, as well as dilos and dodos.

 

[Silverwings]

"Lets work on getting this set back up first," Roan suggested, "That way if something happens we can spawn in somewhere familiar."

 

[Darkling0096]

Preparing a proper spawn point was definitely a good idea, especially since the respawn medallions had to cool down before they could be used again. They hadn't gotten any death messages for Jack or Anna, so they were probably okay, for the moment. In fact, if they checked the tribe log in their menu, they could see that their tribemates were killing parasaurs and phiomias, but they didn't know where they were.

 

[Silverwings]

"Right, well, I just got a bunch of wood and thatch, but we need stone and flint." Vera said, "You wanna work on that?"

"Yea, we can work on that," Roan agreed, "But first, im hungry."

"Oh, I just made some fish on the fire," Vera said as she grabs some to give him, "I hope Jack and Anna are ok."

"Me too. I'm sure Jack can manage. We will probably have a whole mansion made soon " Roan joked. Vera smiled, "He is pretty handy..."

 

[Darkling0096]

Jack, The Redwoods​

On the other side of the island, Jack sneezed. "Ugh, someone's talking about me." He shook his head and focused on what he was doing. Jack knew thatch would not suffice. He needed to gather wood and stone to build a strong box to shelter in until he could find other forms of safety. Stone was the strongest building material available to him, so he needed to collect as much of that as he could, and that meant he needed something to carry supplies. A parasaur could serve that end, he could make the saddle and tools he needed in his inventory, he just needed to get one. From there, he could work on getting something stronger.

“Yeah, that’ll work,” Jack nodded, “Get a parasaur knocked down. Either I’ll tame it or it’ll be bait for something stronger.” Yeah… If he could conk out a parasaur, either the parasaur would be his ride, or something would come to eat it and hopefully he could tame that. Plan chosen, Jack started making what he needed. Bolas, arrows, he needed to rot meat so he took some of his extra raw and spread it out in his inventory so it would rot in bulk. He left the small safety of his thatch hut to collect narcoberries to make narcotics to make tranquilizer arrows. He eyed his surroundings for a good parasaur. He made a club to bash it into unconsciousness. By late midday, he had the things he needed, and he set out so search.

It turns out, there’s things in the trees! And on the ground! Jack was run off by thylacoleos jumping off of the redwood trees multiple times and had his equipment stolen by loose pegomasti multiple times before he finally decided to just screw it and go back to his hut. “Oh god dammit!”, he barked in frustration at the sky before sitting down on the edge of the foundation. He needed to get things sorted.

Those thylacoleos could climb trees. He wondered if he could trap one and tame it, that would probably be a very strong mount. For the terrain traversal if nothing else. If it could scale the sides of these redwood trees so easily, it could probably do the same for other things. And that would also mean, as long as he had such, that he could very easily make a shelter that couldn’t be accessed without such a creature or a flyer. A tree platform very high off the ground would mean that only airborne attackers or more thylas could attack. Yes… that could work.

That would certainly be an attractive option. If fortified properly, he wouldn’t even have to worry about thylacoleos.

Jack shook his head, “No, you’re not trying to build a base, you’re trying to find safe shelter so you can search for your mate.” He sighed and looked out, trying to figure out how he could trap a thyla anyway. Such a creature would be an amazing mount if they could be ridden. He didn’t know how to make such a saddle, though.

He’d have to figure that out tomorrow, though, the sun was going down and he had to spread foliage over his thatch shelter to camouflage it from predators, since he hadn’t had the chance to use stone to reinforce it. For now, he had to bed down, recover from the injuries he’d sustained today, and hope he’d properly camouflaged his hut.

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Anna, Herbivore Island​

Anna found her way atop a cliff. It was good there were no carnivores on this island, or she’d be in real trouble. Gathering materials, she hurried to make tools and get the base of a wooden structure built for shelter on the top of the cliff, with some spikes to keep the dinosaurs out. She needed hide for things she needed, crafting stations, beds, clothes, and a waterskin.

“God, how did those two do it?”, Anna asked herself out loud as she got some spears and arrows in the work, needing a weapon to start hunting parasaurs and phiomias for meat and hide. Things she needed in abundance at the moment.

Anna knew she needed a mount if she was to travel safely. She also knew that, in order to maintain her odds of success in searching for the others, she’d probably need a flier. She could now unlock the pteranodon saddle, so she did. She needed bolas to ground one, and chitin or keratin for the saddle. Even if the saddle had no straps, it would be faster than if she had to traverse the terrain herself, and likely safer too. Pretty much everything on the herbivore island was something that dropped keratin. Trikes, stegos, and ankies could be harvested for it. Meanwhile parasaurs and phiomia were good for meat and hide, and Anna wasn't stupid enough to tangle with a bronto in her current state. No, she needed to focus on getting that pteranodon and flying out of here, or making a boat to leave if she couldn't.

But there were a lot of things that needed to happen between now and then. She needed food, she needed clothes, a waterskin, she wanted to be properly equipped to fight again when she went inland. It was a good thing, then, that this island had every resource she needed to get equipped again. Animals for hide. Trees for wood. Plants for fiber. Boulders and metal nodes.

Drawing her bow and nocking an arrow, Anna went looking for a creature she could end. Phiomias weren’t very quick and didn’t fight back even in groups, so it was easy to bring one down and skin it with her stone axe, bringing the meat and hide back up to her shelter where she put the meat to cook and worked on getting a refining forge up and running, and then a smithy.

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Roan and Vera, The Footpaw​

Jack and Anna were probably fine, but Roan and Vera had their own problems. To make beds for the medallions to use as respawn points, they needed hide, and for that they needed to kill land creatures.

 

[Silverwings]

Vera ate silently. Her mind was on Jack. She missed him. She was hurting, mentally. She lost her first child. Their first child. All she wanted right now was Jack. Roan on the other hand, was worried about Anna. It hadn't taken him or Vera long to get to camp. But how far was she? How far was Jack? How would they even be able to find the others at all?

 

[Darkling0096]

Roan and Vera, the Footpaw​

If Jack and Anna hadn't appeared already, they either weren't going to, or they were far enough away that they wouldn't appear today at the very least. Although, as Roan and Vera looked up at the darkening sky and wondered where their partners were, they got the vague feeling their partners were similarly wondering where they were. How to get to them. At least they knew where the old fort was, if they could find familiar landmarks. The rafts were still floating in the water, if they wanted they could take a raft and search the beaches.

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Jack, the Redwoods​

Jack found he could not get comfortable. His needs were taken care of at the moment, with plans to further that, but he was worried about Vera and the others. Of course he worried about Roan, if there was no one to stop him the man would probably die again trying to tame something he shouldn't. And knowing Anna she'd pick a fight with a pack of raptors and be ripped to pieces. He held the medallion up to get a better look at it, the cooldown looked like it would last a few more days, he hoped the others were smart enough not to go get killed again before then. Most of all he was worried about Vera. She wasn't a hunter like Anna, or a tamer like Roan, that could go exploring with pretty much impunity because they got familiar with their environments so quickly. And she was his mate, she was the biggest priority to find, as far as Jack was concerned. "Don't die on me, sweetheart," he sighed and opened his book.

He knew from his brief explorations that the redwoods were a massive island with a deep river circling them, and he knew that the swamp rode the southern edge. If he could get past the swamp, he could run the beaches back to the old fort. The question was how did he get there? The swam was dangerous. Sarcos and spinos were probably the least of it, at least you could spot a spino from the distance. "I am going to need a strong carnivore," he sighed. Something that could fight very well, kill and eat what they fought, and could make the journey. He hoped that if this thyla tame was successful, and he could somehow make a saddle for it, then he'd be able to skip the worst of it. He started searching his engrams to see if he could unlock a thylacoleo saddle, but he couldn't see it. It was tiers above what he could.

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Anna, Herbivore Island​

By nightfall, Anna had gone around and gathered wood and metal from the area, throwing it in her forge to make ingots, to make metal tools. She had a goal now. A goal that would bring her back to the others, and Roan. She winced, she and Roan had been the last to be eaten by the gigas. She hoped he was alright, besides having died. She hadn't gotten a death message for him. "Don't die on me," she ordered to the air as she worked to make arrows, a crossbow, cook food, make narcotics bolas. Kill ankies, make a ptera saddle, tame a ptera, get back to the old fort. If the others weren't already there, it would at least be somewhere she could take shelter until she found them.

She worked until there was no light to work by, and until stimulant stopped feeling like it gave her energy and instead just made her thirsty. She looked over at her HUD and saw a torpidity stars beginning to glow, if she didn't rest she'd pass out. "Shit." She sighed, she had no choice, go to bed and rest. She looked up at the sky before going inside, 'Goodnight, Roan."

 

[Silverwings]

Vera and Roan worked until nightfall, gathering supplies and getting back some of the things they once had. There was little talking as they worked. Neither were in the mood for chatting. Come morning, the two had new goals. Tame something.

 

[Darkling0096]

Morning came, although without engrams, once again. The groups all managed to wake at roughly the same time in their separate areas, though.

Outside the fort, Roan and Vera could hear large herbivores walking, not really paying the fortress any mind. Trikes were slow, but sturdy. Parasaurs walked the line of being faster than walking, but still maddeningly slow, though they were decent beasts of burden. They'd never tamed a carbonemys before, but everything else was as it had been the previous night. It was a bit strange, waking up in total silence without even the bellowing of parasaurs and the barking of raptors.

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Morning found Jack sore and aching from the mess he’d dealt with yesterday. He looked around and did his checklist. The hut was still intact. Good. Storage box hadn’t been emptied. Great. He had cooked meat still not rotted in his inventory, so he had food for breakfast.

He looked at his medallion to check if the cooldown had gone down. He knew it wouldn’t but it gave him a sense of urgency to check. A reminder to be extra cautious.

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Anna’s morning found her somehow more tired than when she’d gone to sleep. But all night her forge had been burning and turning out ingots to use, which she turned into things she needed. Crossbow, arrows, pickaxe to harvest keratin. Now she just had to drop the dinos on the island that gave keratin until she had seventy-five units of the stuff. This would bring her closer to getting back to the group, and to Roan.

 

[Silverwings]

Vera sighed as she got up. She wasn't use to the silence. She had even gotten use to Jack wishing her a good morning or someone waking her up. She rubbed her face and got to work, making breakfast and tools. Bolas, clubs, narcotics, tranq arrows ,and bows. She wasn't urgent about getting metal. They could survive without it for now.

Roan laid in bed, mind wandering. He was worried about his companions. But he had to remind himself thst worrying wouldn't help them. Laying in bed would get them no closer to Anna and Jack. This is what urged him to get up and leave his room, "Morning..."

"Here, I made us some stuff," she said, "with the few random creatures we killed yesterday we had enough hide to make bolas. I made some of the necessary tools for taming. Take some."

"Good thinking, " He commented, taking the stuff she offered him. Roan thought for a minute, "we should go up the hill here and see if we can find those raptors Jack and I encountered. If we can tame them it'll give us sturdy and fast tames."

"Raptors always run straight at you. If you time it right, you can have them bolaed and knocked out before they even know what hit them.." Vera replied with a nod, "Lets kill a few things for meat and hide, then we can travel up that way."

 

[Darkling0096]

In the redwoods...

Soon Jack was getting equipped to go hunting for a thyla. He had a plan. He would build a box with a low roof, a doorway at the end, and one side open. He’d let the best chase him into the box. He’d go out the other side, and pop a wall on the other side, free to shoot it full of tranq arrows at his leisure.

“Yeah, that’ll work!” He just needed wood, so he went chopping, and before long had the materials he needed, and went searching for a good place to build the trap with a thylacoleo nearby to make it easy, watching both the trees for his quarry and the ground for sabers, scorpions, allos, carnos, or anything else dangerous that inhabited these woods. As soon as he spotted one, a pretty-looking one with a white and red fur pattern. Easy to spot when you were looking, but high enough up that you wouldn't notice if it wasn't. "I see you, bitch," he smiled as he started building the trap.

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On Herbivore Island...

Ankies proved very durable, and dangerous in groups. Anna barely had the arrows to drop the three that came after her when she shot one, and she was running across the island to outrun them. But eventually, they fell, and Anna hacked their spikey armor apart for keratin to make that pteranodon saddle. "Damn these things are big," Anna sighed as she now looked around for a landing pteranodon to bola and start knocking out. But it was late in the day, the only ones in the area were those that were landing to recover stamina before taking flight again, and she struggled to sneak up on one.

 

[Silverwings]

So the two agreed and got ready, going outside and killing a few parasaurs to get their meat and hide before they began to make their way up the hill to the weather top. They weren't sure why they knew the name but they knew the hill top was called that.

With bolas and bows equipped, the two found themselves carefully trekking the area. The familiar call of a raptor signalled one about to attack and with quick reaction, Roan was able to bola the three that had killed Natalie and chased him and Jack off the cliff. It wasn't long after that they were on the ground, meat in their inventories and taming. Before long, Vera and Roan had three raptors tamed and ready to fight. Now to get the saddles for them.

Even getting saddles didn't take long. With raptors there to get hide after every kill, withing about an hour or so, two of the beasts were saddled and ready to run.

 

[Darkling0096]

“Aw, Roan would be having so much of an easier time with this,” Anna swore when yet another pteranodon fled when she appeared. The thought of having Roan here helping her made her feel some warm fuzzies. If Roan was here she might not even be so worried about getting to the others.

A pteranodon landed nearby while she was wrapped up in imagining her and Roan moving along on the back of a stego around the island. Not one to miss an opportunity, Anna quickly bolaed the flyer and walked up with her club, “This is only gonna hurt for a bit,” she smiled as she raised the club to go to work.

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When Jack finally had the structure built, and he’d practiced running through, he went to take his position and shot the thyla to get its attention, before sprinting into the trap.

However, the thyla found another target as another human appeared, this one wearing armor made from metal, wielding a crossbow of tranq bolts. Unfortunately, this man was ill-prepared despite how well-equipped he was, to take a thylacoleo to the face. The creature rent and ripped at the man before his armor just… vanished, accompanied by a shattering sound that said it was broken, before the thylacoleo ate the man, and turned its attention to Jack.

“Shit.” Jack started running for the trap.