《Gamer's Guide to Waking up as a Dinosaur》24: The Cave of Wonder
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I was a little apprehensive of returning to the place where the Deotrexaptors had pursued me. The jungle was dangerous. I’d already seen enough to know that. My eyes no longer happily flitted from tree to bush to flower or branch. Instead, I scanned the area carefully, looking for threats.
My loot—the windfall of two giant wings I’d scored from the plains—was grasped tightly between my hands. Being thumbless made carrying stuff far harder than it should’ve been. If there was one thing I definitely missed about my old life, it was opposable thumbs.
You might ask “Dino-Friend, couldn’t you just eat the wings?” Well, I could’ve—that’s true. But if I even thought about doing that, I could almost feel the xaptor meat in my throat. I’d already eaten too much to trigger Feast, and these wings weren’t going down. No. For now, they would slow me, and I was prepared to ditch them if I needed to run.
The solace I felt came from the knowledge that I wouldn’t be going too far back into the jungle. I’d really much rather stay close to the last known location of the destructive dino who spared me. If he was capable of eating a similar food-to-body ratio as me, then those nuggets he consumed weren’t enough. And that meant that he’d spared me.
For what reason, though? Could Rex see in me the same intelligence I saw in him? Or maybe… was it a decision made just on a whim?
I don’t know much about Earth dinosaurs, but I’d assume the fathers wouldn’t just abandon their kids. So he probably wasn’t my dad.
I decided to stay nearby the watering hole in case he returned. Trying my luck with Sailboat was not on the agenda. In fact, it was a huge risk I was entirely unwilling to take.
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But sleeping in the open wasn’t going to make me feel any safer so I decided to remain in the outskirts of the jungle. I inhaled deeply, breathing in the usual earthy scents. Something else was there, though, a tang nested inside the typical jungle fragrance. It was faint, but it reminded me of a stinky wet dog.
Better be careful… I thought. Don’t want to end up as Fenrir chow.
It was time to find a place to sleep. And I wanted it near the pond. I pushed through the undergrowth, blazing a trail through bushes and ferns, looking for another of the massive bushes I’d found to sleep in before. The area seemed to be… empty, though. Back where I’d hatched, the undergrowth had been thicker, and the trees had been larger. Here, while the forest floor was still coated in moss, and the trees still much larger than most I’d seen in my past life, the space seemed far more open.
I guess the best way to explain it would be to say that the visibility was far greater in this area. It left an array of emotions churning within me. I felt unsafe because it felt like there was less to conceal my presence, but at the same time, part of me was relieved that I could see threats better now. It was a strange mix.
I stopped my hike, turning and walking far around a pile of fruit I could see through the trees. I recognized it from my previous encounter with the Metamorphic Impersonators. Even if I was a higher level than them, until I understood them better, I would avoid them. For now, I skirted the area, keeping an eye out for any rogue cocoons above me.
I passed by a massive boulder that reminded me of Rexcelsis’ head, and stepped cautiously over a low, thorny bush right down onto a patch of soft leaves.
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Well, I thought it was a patch of soft leaves, anyway. Until I actually stepped on it.
My weight was already committed to the forward foot, and as the leaves collapsed around me, it felt as if a hot hand fist had clenched around my heart. The sudden fall had me flailing my arms. I could only think about how this was the way I’d go out.
After everything I’d been through in this new world: the close encounters I’d experienced with the Deotrexaptors and the Fenrirs, being targeted by Sailboat, the god of the jungle, nearly getting drowned by a siren… This was how it ended?
I didn’t want to just die by falling into a pit.
A toe from my rear foot—the one I had no weight on anymore—caught on a rock jutting out of the pit’s edge, and I catapulted forward. I crashed onto my belly, sliding down a sudden decline I hadn’t noticed before. It wasn’t uncomfortably steep, either.
If I was still human, my skin probably would’ve burned from the friction. Luckily, though, my scales were much tougher.
As I sat at the bottom in a heap, the wings piled next to me, I looked back up to the top of the pit. It had been covered back up by the leaves again. From the outside, they shielded the view of the opening from sight, but the leaves were transparent enough that the let the light flood in, illuminating the dark area around me.
I sat in the middle of a small, empty stone cave, no trace of life to be seen, and as I sniffed the air, no traces of death, either. I tried something new, gazing intently around me.
Cave
This area is a cave. Certain types of creatures like to live within them.
Wow, I thought sarcastically. Very helpful.
There needed to be some exploring, of course, and I could definitely decorate the interior so it wasn’t so… empty. But, all in all, this spot would make for a nice home base! Though… that was conditional on whether I could remember how to get to it, or not. But a hidden entrance, eh?
…
Have I just stumbled into my very own Dino Cave?
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The General Core {The Sphere}
The life cycle in the Sphere is on the brink of collapse because one of its elements, the Dungeons, have been exploited too much by the mortals. The group who created the Sphere already tried and failed with several modifications, because the original computer-like dungeon cores are too inflexible to handle changing approaches. So they try another type of solution – taking souls from other worlds to try to find a solution before the Sphere Cycle breaks down completely. The General was one of the best soldiers of his world, rising from the ranks of a private through Officer School to the highest command with honors. But when his world faced a zombie apocalypse, even that was not enough and he had to make the ultimate sacrifice. Now he is asked for a repeat performance of planning and controlling a dungeon and its spawns in a world that he knows nothing about… But what is the Sphere really? What is that [Xenotic conversion] he has to go through to even enter the Sphere? Something is really strange and he will have to find out what is going on to get to his promised rewards – whatever they will be. Being a soul in a dungeon core means that the General has better chances of finding hints to the truth about the sphere – a knowledge that would help him survive. And no, the sphere is NOT a virtual reality – the key to its secrets is the place where it was physically constructed (Author’s hint). This is a dungeon core story - but there are quite a number of things that I will do differently than common to those stories. 1) I will describe the floors when they are explored, NOT when they are build. Yes, that will mean it will take longer to get to those parts - but I think describing floors both when they are build and when they are explored destroys quite a lot of chances for suspense when adventurers enter the dungeon. After all, if you as the reader already know where the traps are, then you can't really be surprised when the surfacers encounter them. 2) How the world works (and how not) is an integral part of the story, so it will be explained I'm a world-builder first and the Sphere is NOT a regular world (as hinted in the synopsis above). Things will work differently than in your 08/15 default dungeon core stories - as the General and Gunny have already learned in the second arc (and more of that is already scheduled for the next weeks (July/Aug 2019) when the Sky Arrows continue to explore and evaluate that strange dungeon) If you don't like these premises, then I'm sure you'll find a lot of other Dungeon Core stories more to your liking. But if you are interested in more than "Dungeon builds another room and corridor in medieval earth" and are not afraid of a longer and slower story, then go on. I have two more stories in the Sphere, although they both have lower priority than this one: Shaleen the Wanderer (Adventurer, NSFW) (currently on hold after some chapters) Info's on the Sphere (System Docu and Short Stories) (irregular updates when needed) Current Status reports have been moved to a new discord server: https://discord.gg/EaHkXCfm9y
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