It took them a while, but when they found their prey, Dominic knew that this was what he wanted to target. It was a little bit selfish, he’d admit, since they probably wouldn’t be the best for gaining Points, but at least it had the benefit of being familiar prey for the lower-level lionesses to hunt.
They had come across the tracks of the small herd of wildebeest not that long after making the decision, and Dominic had immediately decided to follow them. The lionesses seemed pretty willing to follow his lead – not only had most of them got used to following him into fights, but these were familiar targets for hungry lions. Even if they weren’t all that hungry right at that moment, they were willing to hunt.
Once they had found the group, they spent a little time scouting it out. Dominic attempted to get a decent headcount – hard when the animals moved almost constantly, even if it was slowly, but he estimated there to be somewhere between thirty to fifty of the grass-eaters.
Considering that he knew their herds could number into the hundreds of thousands, even millions at certain times of the year, he wondered whether the relatively small size was simply because of the season, or linked to the System’s arrival. Or both, perhaps – so much had changed that it would almost be strange for migratory patterns to remain the same.
‘There’s plenty of grass,’ remarked Leo. ‘They probably have no need to migrate for now. That’s a pity in the sense that large herds mean lots of prey.’
‘Yeah, but then what happens when all the animals move out of your hunting area?’ Dominic pointed out, his ability to connect to Leo’s memories informing him of just how dry and desolate the area got until the next rains came.
‘True,’ admitted Leo, then fell silent.
They watched the herd for a little, noting its general direction, the general health of its members – surprisingly few sick or injured ones, the direction of the wind, and other things like that. Then again, I suppose the way the System works means that either they’re healed when they level up, or they die, mused Dominic.
Though that did raise questions about whether there were injuries the System couldn’t heal, even with a level up. Or diseases. Considering it for a moment, Dominic had to guess that the answer was ‘yes’ – for diseases, at least. They had an annoyingly good way of evolving according to their target’s immune system. Actually, what if diseases were affected by the System too? After all, bacteria and viruses were alive, weren’t they? By certain definitions, anyway.
Dominic thought for a moment more about that possibility, then shuddered with a mixture of revulsion and fear, and decided to put it out of his mind – permanently, hopefully.
Once they had found out enough information about the wildebeest herd, it was time to plan the next moves. Although they’d previously planned to bring the animals to the pride, in this case, causing a herd of stampeding wildebeest to charge towards a group of unsuspecting lions seemed like a bad idea. Dominic had no desire to make his life any more like The Lion King than it already was.
Approaching Hathor and Neith slowly and carefully – not wanting to accidentally spook the herbivores – Dominic focussed on sending them a message of what he wanted them to do. He’d carefully crafted it with Leo’s help, so hopefully it would be clear for them.
In short, he wanted them to tail the herd of wildebeest from a distance, not letting them know that there were lions around. When he called, they were to respond, but only then. If other predators attacked, they were to continue watching and see what happened if it seemed safe enough to do so. If not, they were to search out the rest of the pride, calling as much as they needed to find the pride’s position.
Satisfied that they understood their role, the rest of them slunk away, heading back to the rest of the lions. Once they were far enough away from the wildebeest herd that they shouldn’t cause any disturbance to the group of herbivores, even if they were spotted, they increased the pace.
Dominic was hoping that the rest of the pride wouldn’t already be hunting at the time they arrived, or worse, eating – as he’d experienced, it was hard work convincing a lion who had already eaten to do more hunting. If they were eating at the time, it would no doubt be even worse.
It took them a while to find the tracks of the two prides, but with the number of lions in question, and knowing where they had started from, they succeeded.
As it turned out, they had done some hunting, but had only found a small group of warthogs. With only five individuals lying dead on the ground, there wasn’t going to be enough food to satisfy the twenty-one adults in the group, let alone all the cubs as well.
In fact, it was just as well that their little group arrived when it did: the scarcity of the meat was provoking hostilities between the two prides. Though no violence had yet erupted between any of the lions, the situation appeared like a powder-keg, ready to blow. It would only take one of the lions taking a swipe at another and then the whole area would boil with fighting felines.
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While that would probably mean lots of good Prey Points floating around, it wasn’t in the slightest what Dominic wanted to happen.
Leaping into the fray, Dominic landed right on top of the two carcasses most in contention. Roaring loudly, he then snarled and essentially chased all the lionesses away from the kills.
Deciding to take advantage of the situation, he only felt a little bad in Consuming the two bodies.
The lions around him snarled and growled. He didn’t care – he just chased them off the next carcass, then the next. The last was currently being claimed by the three sub-adult males. These resisted a little longer, but Dominic just snarled even more menacingly and crouched down, ready to pounce. In his vocalisation, he tried to put the message: ‘you try it, and I’ll kill you.’
Apparently, they got it, whether from his snarl or the glint of violence in his eyes. They hurriedly backed off, and he absorbed the last carcass, slipping its Core into his Inventory to join the others he’d put in there.
‘There, that might give me enough progress to finally acquire Charge,’ he said to Leo with a hint of satisfaction. If the bodies hadn’t been enough, the Cores would be.
‘Perhaps focus more on our hungry and angry pride,’ suggested the lion, a little sardonically. It was good advice – Leo the voice of reason keeping him on track.
The lions around him were definitely hungry and angry, their snarls now directed at Dominic himself. Fortunately, all of them were used to male lions coming in and grabbing the food without doing the work, so they didn’t appear to be ready to outright attack him – yet, anyway.
‘Sekhmet, help me out here in explaining things, would you?’ he directed to the other Tier 2 lion, then started communicating with the matriarch of the other pride. Since this wasn’t by any means the first time he’d communicated mentally with her, she took the connection without an issue. When he showed her the herd of wildebeest, she even stopped growling.
He sent her a few images to illustrate how he expected the fight to go, only to receive a response that he could only interpret as her saying ‘obviously!’ Apparently, he was trying to teach grandma how to suck eggs.
With her on board, as well as Isis, it wasn’t hard to get the two prides moving. The other pride did take a moment to greet and examine the two females who had come with him – one had obviously chosen size on both her level-ups and was now almost the biggest in the pride, despite not being fully-grown. The other’s size hadn’t changed so much, but her teeth had become longer and sharper; obvious when she had her mouth open.
The evidence of how they had visibly improved between going away and coming back appeared to be enough to eliminate the rest of the bad-will Dominic had gained from coming in and stealing all the meat from their kills.
Seeing as they were now going to be hunting together, Dominic thought it was high time they did something else together too.
‘Leo, help me out here – there are too many lions for me to do it all myself.’
‘You’re not going to invite the young males, are you?’ moaned Leo, though he started sending out invitations to the new females. Dominic paused for a moment in thought.
‘I don’t see why not. Until they force me to kick them out, they’re part of the pride.’
‘But then they’ll be taking valuable Prey Points!’
‘Only when they’re part of the hunt,’ Dominic pointed out. It had been fairly obvious to see that the Prey Points were only shared with those who had come with him on his hunting trips: the other members of the Pride didn’t get anything at those times. Whether it was because of distance or activity, he wasn’t entirely sure. He suspected the latter, but it could be interesting to test if a member of the Pride who wasn’t actually active in the hunt, but was close by at the time of the kill might still earn Points.
But that was for another time.
‘Still, we will be strengthening our enemies!’ Leo objected.
‘No more than we strengthen ourself. Do you think three half-grown lions are going to pose a threat to us, at our level?’
‘And what if they attack when we’re injured and vulnerable?’ asked Leo darkly.
‘Then sucks to be them, because we’ve got Second Wind and super-charged Regeneration. And that even assumes I can’t activate that challenge thing again which would bring me to full health,’ Dominic responded with a little exasperation. ‘Look, I get it, and yes, if they challenge me, I’ll kick them out – physically and from the Pride. But until then…all they’ve done ‘wrong’ is exist. Let’s just give them a chance, OK?’ The lion huffed and grumped, but didn’t actually object, which Dominic took as agreement.
The three male sub-adults were therefore added to the pride list. Actually, there was a benefit to adding them which Dominic hadn’t thought about before – he gained a point for every tier or half-tier the members who joined gained as well as a point for joining, so even the young male lions should be giving them at least one point each. And they were also adding to the level of the Pride, which should mean that he’d got at least into the next level.
‘Leo, can you take over for a bit? I want to check out our Pride status, but don’t want to risk walking into a tree or something.’
‘Of course – by no means do I want you to embarrass us that badly!’ the lion responded hurriedly, his mental presence already pushing against Dominic’s.
The transition went quickly, and Dominic was soon free to focus on the Pride screen. They were travelling slower this way anyway, since the cubs were on their heels. He’d have time, and perhaps there would be something in the list of enhancements which might both be affordable and useful in the next hunt.