It was stupid, Erik had to admit. Not because he made stupid plans. How could a plan be stupid if it worked? The reason his strategy was stupid was because he didn’t know enough about the game. He knew that. He knew that failing to predict correctly what was going to be important was practically inevitable. It was possible every choice they made now would come back to haunt them. If they had begun the game with adult dinos, it would’ve made his life so much simpler.
“Anyone ever tell you that you think too much?” Marcus said with a laugh, from where he stood on the table's far side. His baby tyrannosaurus model occupying one third of the space above it as three of them worked their way through their mutations.
“I’m trying to guess what it’s going to take for us to win 5 million dollars.” Erik said, scrolling slowly through the mutation menu.
“Do you think it’s worth growing before we get back in there?” Sarah asked. “I’m at 5% growth already. At 1% per 5 I could hit juvenile with what I’ve got.”
“5%?” Erik asked, and she nodded. “I’m only at 3%.”
“I’m also at 3%” Marcus said, “What’s that about? Is it because she’s smaller than us to start off?”
“Maybe,” Erik said slowly, reviewing the events of the day in his memory. “Marcus, did you eat anything?”
“No, that damn alligator ran us off before we could get to it with that team we killed. Why?”
“Because I did.” Sarah said, understanding what Erik was getting at. “I took a few bites off the raptor before we had to get out of there.” Erik nodded. So eating wasn’t just for the food meter. He wasn’t sure if finding food would count towards their survival score on the end of day scoring, but he did know that not eating counted against them. He imagined that if they hadn’t evaded a large predator twice in the same day, that score would’ve been abysmal, and he did not want to make a habit of running from large, dangerous predators in order to boost his score. Plus, he doubted he could go a second day without food.
“So we need to kill some more stuff.” Marucs said with a shrug. “Wasn’t that hard.”
“I need plants, or a particular kind of plant. I’m not sure.”
“Wait, you can’t eat meat?” Marcus asked, grinning as he shook his head. “Are you telling me you’re a damn Vegan?”
“Oh will you give it a rest.” Sarah said, exasperated she planned forward ontot he table staring intently at her raptor. Marcus took it better than Erik expected. Glancing sideways at her, before shrugging and saying nothing. “So what’s the play? She asked, turning her attention back to Erik. Her revelation that she was 5% in, and the fact she had 25 points in total meant she could indeed hit the 10% required to achieve juvenile starting their second day.
“If you grow, you won’t have enough left over to mutate anything.” He said, feeling compelled to point it out, even though he knew she could count just fine.
“I’ll roll what I have left over into tomorrow. There’s a bonus to your points for growing, remember? Whatever my score is tomorrow, if I’m a juvenile then I’ll get more, especially since those titles we all got will be in effect by then.” That was true, and he wasn’t sure what the bonus was for Juvenile, but no matter what, Sarah’s points were going to be considerably higher than they had been at the end of day 2. In fact now that he was considering it, it started to seem like buying growth was the best option for all of them. Eriks 22 points wouldn’t get him to Juvie before the day started, but it could get him to 7%, and assuming he found food and earned the same amount of growth as Sarah had, that would put him over. Marcus too, and the earlier they got their bonuses for growth, the more value they would get out of them.
“We should all spend our biopoints on growing.” He said, and Marcus pulled his cowboy hat off, running a hand through his hair before replacing it.
“I have a mutation that makes my bite stronger, and it’s E grade, and I have just enough to get it, and you’re telling me I should spend my points on growing to 7%? That won’t even get me to the next stage.”
“It will if we can find food. Sarah grew 4% from where we started. We’ll both be Juvenile by the next time we get back to the HUB.” Marcus grimaced, his head shaking back and forth slowly.
“I don’t know Rik, you’re basically saying we should go back out there with nothing gained?”
“No, I’m saying we should survive another day early, and get ahead of the curve for the rest of the game.”
“Can’t get ahead if we die.” Marcus grumbled, but then he waved a dismissive hand. “Okay, we’ll do it your way.”
The three of them turned back to their displays and allocated their biopints to growth.
“What about ability points?” Marcus asked, still tapping through is display, then his face fell. “Oh.”
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“Yeah,” Erik agreed, before switching to the ability points display himself.
Abilities:
Hatchling Charge: A weak but instinctive charge attack.
A basic charge attack that deals minimal damage but can disrupt smaller enemies.
Basic Bite: A simple bite attack.
A basic bite attack that deals consistent, moderate damage to close-range targets.
Basic Headbutt: A simple head attack.
A straightforward headbutt that deals moderate damage and can stagger small opponents.
Ability Points: 11
Upgrades:
Hatchling Charge -> Juvenile Charge (Locked:Requires Juvenile Stage)
Juvenile Charge: A more powerful and controlled charge attack.
Description: This charge attack deals increased damage and has a higher chance of knocking down or stunning enemies, especially smaller or similarly-sized opponents.
Ability Points: 10
Basic Bite -> Strong Bite (Locked:Requires Juvenile Stage)
Strong Bite: A forceful bite attack.
Description: This bite deals higher damage than the basic bite and has a slight chance to cause minor bleeding, making it more effective against tougher opponents.
Ability Points: 5
Basic Headbutt -> Forceful Headbutt (Locked:Requires Juvenile Stage)
Forceful Headbutt: An enhanced headbutt attack with greater impact.
Description: This headbutt deals more damage than the basic headbutt and has a moderate chance of staggering or dazing enemies, making them vulnerable to follow-up attacks.
Ability Points: 5
“I can’t buy any of this.” Marcus complained. “It’s all locked until I grow." Erik nodded, it seemed they had seriously erred by not placing a greater emphasis on finding food.
“It doesn’t say anything about how to get more abilities.” Sarah added.
“I think that part is pretty straightforward.” Erik said. “I think abilities are linked to mutations. If you purchase a mutation, it comes with a related ability, and then you can purchase upgrades for it depending on your growth.”
“Right,” Marcus said, with a shake of his head. “So we’re not getting anything and we gotta go back out there as babies with no upgrades?”
“Actually,” Sarah said, “thanks to the growth I purchased, my abilities are unlocked.”
“Keen senses.” Erik said, and Sarah nodded.
“It’s Heightened Senses now, and I upgraded Quick Pounce to Agile Pounce.”
“Well at least we got something.” Marcus said, but he sounded dissatisfied. Erik couldn’t blame
him. They had barely survived their first day. He didn’t relish the idea of going up against the large predators of E.L.E as baby dinosaurs for a second day.
The Hammocks were purely decorative, as they had no need to sleep. Why would they? It had only been about 50 seconds since they’d started in real world time. So they stood together around the table and they discussed what their next steps should be. They talked about ways to mesh their abilities, and Erik began constructing their playbook. Pre-determined plans of action that anyone could call out. Though there wasn’t much to it yet.
Erik called Primarch out several more times to pick the AI’s brain for information, and found it frustrating how often he would learn something useful, only to have further questions meet
dead end. The golden feathered humanoid dinosaur was a maze when it came to questions, and Erik found the 8 hours allotted to them in the HUB passed quickly.
General Announcement:
All players, please stand by. You will be returned to the game world in 10 seconds.
“It’s about time.” Marcus said, shaking his head. “I was starting to get bored.”
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