Pop
They were back. The jungle around them humming with life as the first rays of sunlight began to glitter in the tree tops far above their heads. Down on the jungle floor it was still dark, but much improved over the unbroken blackness the had been hiding in before being pulled away to the Hub. As promised they had been returned to exactly where they had left from, three baby dinosaurs still pressed under a log, except…
“I think I’m stuck.” Sarah said, her raptor chirping. Erik turned his crested head to look at her. She had been hunched down, to his right side, where the gap between the log and the ground had been the narrowest because when they’d hidden here, she had been the smallest. He was shocked to see her now, more than twice the size she’d been originally. She was probably longer than Marcus from nose to tail. It was hard to judge relative size in this jungle, he had no frame of reference for anything here. How big was a person next to one of these trees?
A cold breeze wafted through the tree’s and Erik paused, his trike body shivering involuntarily. So far the jungle had been a consistent, muggy hotness that their dinosaur bodies seemed perfectly acclimated to. He hadn’t even really thought about the temperature until just then, when it felt like a winter breeze had slithered seemingly from nowhere to crawl across his skin. He saw Marcus pause, turning to look in the direction of the wind, his head titling, small rex hands flexing uneasily, while Sarah paused in her struggles to escape, going still like she’d scented a predator.
The chill air moved along, blowing off as quickly as it had come, but the sensation still left Erik unsettled, and he shivered again, before turning his focus back to Sarah.
“Marcus, help me try and wedge this log up a bit higher so she can slide loose.” Maruc complied, moving around the back of the log to stand opposite Erik,and together they used their heads to leverage the log up. It was only a few inches difference at most, but it was enough. With a scrabbling effort of her feet and paws, Sarah managed to wiggle her way forward, slipping free of her prison.
“That’s the second time I've started a day trapped.” She grumbled, sounding uncharacteristically angry.
“We’ll have to be more careful.” He said stepping back to look at her properly now that she was loose.
“Okay,” Marcus said as he approached, looking her over. “Maybe spending those points on growth was the right idea.” He admitted, and it was easy to see what had brought him around. Sarah was nearly on a level with him now, only slightly shorter at the hip, but it wasn’t simply a matter of size. She’d gone from feeling like a small, borderline helpless baby to an animal that felt much more lethal. Despite the closer size between her and Marcus’s Rex hatchling, she was more heavily muscled, her claws glittered like obsidian and her teeth shining yellow-white where they where visible when she chirped or hooted. “
“Not gonna lie.” Marcus continued. “You’re definitely not that little ankle biting shit you were yesterday, but you sound like an overgrown pigeon.” Sarah snorted in laughter, and Erik chuckled as well. At that moment another chill wind rolled over them, even colder this time, setting them all to shivering.
“What the hell is that?” Marcus growled, and as Erik looked he felt like he was starting to see something through the trees. The cold wind gusted over them in rolling waves before dying down to be replaced by the jungles muggy heat once more.
“We need to find a vantage point, Sarah, I want you to move towards higher ground. We’ll follow after you.” The raptors head snapped down in a sharp nod before she bolted away, a brown-green blur vanishing into the undergrowth.
Among the many useful tidbits Erik had gleaned from Primarch, the existence of the map in his HUD was perhaps the most immediately useful. He had scolded himself thoroughly for overlooking it initially, but if he were being fair to himself, he’d had exactly enough time to regroup with his friends before nearly being eaten, and from there it had been a mad scramble to get his bearings.
He called the map up, and watched Sarah’s dot moved move directly away from then, following the incline of the ground and looking for a place where they might get a clear view of the horizon.
It was in the process of following her that Erik had a bit of good luck, or at least he called it lucky. When the seemingly inert vines Erik had been trying to thread his way through came to life, snapping into place around him like dark green tentacles. It certainly didn’t look like anything lucky was about to happen. Erik struggled against the vines, twisting this way and that as he forced one foot down in front of the other, grunting with each step as the vines strained to hold him back.
“Guys, what’s going on” Sarah’s voice came across the line, and Erik could see her dot slowing as she
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“Some creepy plant thing is trying to eat Rik.” Marcus said. Erik had begun chomping into the thing anywhere he could reach. Twisting this way and that, and unleashing his basic bite ability over and over.
“Do I need to come back?” She asked, her dot on the map had paused.
“Nope.” Erik replied,his voice strained. “We’ve got it under control.”
Erik’s small, flat feet slid through the loose soil as he tried to power his small body into motion. Curiously he wasn’t worried. Of all the things he’d feared running into, some sort of tentacle plant monster was pretty low on the list in terms of the terror it could inspire. His sharp, beak-like mouth sheared through one grasping limb, and then another while Marcus worked alongside him, using his young rex’s needle-like teeth to chomp into the plant, but all the while making coughing, gagging sound as he did so.
“This thing tastes awful,” Marcus complained. Erik didn’t answer, his mouth slicing through another length of vine. With that he was able to shake himself loose and rush forward, following he flailing vines to their source, and finding a short distance away a strange green and purple bulb about the size of the egg he’d hatched from, with vines snaking away from its base to be lost in the undergrowth.
Identify:
Species: Virdraga Minor
Type: Plant Monster
Disposition: Aggressive/Predator
Information: ?
Erik had the presence of mind to call up the identify window as he rushed the plant. The vines proved to be much less effective at defending then they were at ambushing, and when he triggered his charge ability, and several headbutts thereafter, it accomplished nothing more than flailing it’s extra long limbs ineffectually, incapable of retracting the long green lengths of plant matter. A few more headbutt and he managed to half-uproot the thing, and whatever health screen it had must’ve zeroed out because the bud seemed to deflate, taking on that same ragdoll quality that dinosaurs did when they died. Going from a crisply detailed plant monster that looked as real as anything he’d seen in his life, to a rubbery prop. While he looked at it, his small sides heaving for breath, two things happened. First, the identify screen updated.
Species: Virdraga Minor
Type: Plant Monster
Disposition: Aggressive/Predator
Killed: 1
Description: The Virdraga Minor is a smaller, less mature variant of the predatory plant found in dense jungle environments. It consists of a central bulbous body, with multiple long, vine-like appendages extending from its base. These vines are capable of rapid movement and are used to ensnare and constrict prey. The plant exhibits a green and purple coloration, which helps it blend into the jungle undergrowth.
Abilities:
* Constriction: Virdraga Minor's vines can wrap around and constrict prey, making it difficult for them to escape.
* Camouflage: The plant's coloration allows it to remain hidden until it strikes, making it an effective ambush predator.
* Regeneration: Severed vines can regrow over time, allowing the Virdraga Minor to recover from partial damage.
And the second was a rectangular prompt at the center of his vision that simply said,
Eat?
With more thought than gesture, he triggered the prompt and he found himself bending down, scrapping a chunk from the planet with his curved beak-like mouth, like some sort of extra sharp ice cream scoop. Then his large flat back molars went to work, grinding up the plant matter to be swallowed. He found he had to disagree with Marcus, who had followed him to the plants main body, but hadn’t had a chance to do much before Erik uprooted it. The Virdraga plant didn’t taste bad at all, it tasted like a banana, though perhaps a little sweeter. He guessed the game was calibrating the flavor for him as an herbivore.
“Okay,” Marcus said, panting softly as he recovered from the short but violent struggle. “If those are the kinda plants you gotta eat then vegans here are pretty hardcore.”