by Dan Thomas
“And get our dinos back,” Sam added as she cracked open a can of beer and took a long gulp.
“The Ravagers aren’t just going to let anyone into their Crew, especially not one of us,” Max argued.
“We’ve thought about that,” Roderick insisted.
“So come on, let’s hear it.” Excitement bubbled up inside Max. Whatever their plan, win or fail, he was hooked. All they had to do was reel him in.
“Remember that smurf account of yours?” Roderick asked.
Max suspected that he wasn’t about to be reeled in, he was already in the net.
Chapter Six
“This smurf account?” Max asked as the velvet black of the headset began to fill with the colors of greenery.
“That’ll be the one. A low-level account used by an experienced player,” Roderick’s disembodied voice said directly into his ear. They were all wearing earpieces connected to their voice chat program, Jabber. Most players in Terra Verse say that they disapprove of communications programs outside of the game, but those same people still used them due to the sheer convenience in worlds without methods for long-distance communication.
“So...where are you?” Chopsticks’ voice sounded in Max’s other ear.
“I don’t know. I haven’t used this account for over a year.” Max looked up at the sky, or what he could see of the sky above the thick jungle canopy. “I have no idea where I am.”
“It’s almost impossible to get a second account, why did you bother if you weren’t going to use it?” Chopsticks asked. “You know it’s against the Terms of Service.”
Max did a full three-sixty, turning slowly around as he took in his surroundings. “Uh, Jag owed me a favor after I helped him out when he first moved to Gyromeda. I’ve always been the homemaker, slaving away with crafting and whatever, so he offered to set me up a new character so I could run it as a hunter. Turns out I wasn’t cut out for it, and with the stress of being caught, I gave up with this character.”
“What about all the meticulous account details?” Chopsticks said. “There are a lot of hoops you have to go through to make an account.”
“Jag modeled it after a real person, I think. He used the details of some high-up manager of Visionary Alternatives. I think it was Jag giving them the middle finger,” Max said.
“What a trash company, they really screwed him over, huh?” Chopsticks said.
“Yeah, no kidding.”
“Geez, why are you shouting?” Sam’s muffled voice said.
“There’s a river here, it’s difficult to hear much over it,” Max replied, decidedly quieter.
“A river? Follow it,” Roderick’s voice commanded.
“Just let me listen a moment.” Max listened to the sound of the forest. Before he followed the river, he needed to know there wasn’t something with big teeth waiting to eat him up alive just after he’d appeared back in the world. Some of the creatures in Primeva had amazing camouflage and this low-level character didn’t have great perception.
“What do you see?” Chopsticks hissed in his ear.
“Shhh, I’m trying to listen.” Max took a couple of steps forward, and almost slipped over as the loose sandy bank of the wide river gave way underfoot. Playing a new character was like wearing new shoes. Except that his normal shoes were like a second skin, and the new ones were five sizes too large.
“Sam’s nearly got the TV ready,” Chopsticks relayed the information, which was a relief for Max. Once they had a screen set up to watch his every move, and every death, they wouldn’t expect him to narrate what he was doing.
Max took a couple of tentative steps forward and crept alongside the river. The jungle was dense all around him, but it seemed more looming than usual. The plants and trees that he could see were mostly familiar to him, but he struggled to pick out any details from the wall of foliage. Either side of the water, which was mostly clear, there was a strip of ground, probably a mix of poor dirt and small stones, that animals used as a walkway.
As Max moved cautiously onward, he quickly checked what equipment he had on him. With a thought, he brought up the translucent screen, detailing what he had equipped, along with everything he had in the small bag across his back.
He was wearing crudely woven clothes, which he had reinforced with bits of wood on his forearms and shins. Slung over his shoulder, along with some rope, was a spear. He pulled it off and looked at it. It wasn’t much, roughly carved with a small flint tip. He also had a small bow, with two arrows. A vague memory of a battle came to him. Yeah, he’d been in a fight with a Pachy, a small boneheaded dinosaur, and used his arrows to kill it just before he’d stopped using this account.
Bringing his senses back to the present, he listened to the jungle, filled with the jumbled sounds of insects and distant cries of animals.
Max kept walking and followed the contours of the riverbank, staying away from the edge as he began to get accustomed to this new Primeva experience.
Max had forgotten how the world looked different when you were on the bottom of the food chain.
Glancing down, he could see vague, dark shapes moving just under the surface of the inky water. Nasty things were lurking under the surface. Creatures with big eyes and big snapping teeth. Things he should probably avoid. But following the river would be the easiest way of figuring out where exactly he was. At least what continent he was on.
If he could find a landmark, he could probably use the direction of the sun to trek to their base. Though he’d be relying on his own experience, as this character lacked any real skill in navigating, judging by the fact that he was missing the sense of which compass direction he was facing. Max slowly turned a full 360 degrees. His normal character would have automatically provided him the direction he was facing, thanks to his higher Intuition. This smurf character had no clue.
“Urgh.” He recoiled as he lifted his foot out of the pool of quicksand that was covered with fallen leaves. He suspected the leaves were not there naturally, and since no animals made traps, that meant another Crew, or even a solitary player, was close by. Max was in unknown territory and anyone he met would be treated as a hostile.
“All right, we’re on,” Sam said.
Even with his friends seeing through his eyes, he felt strangely alone. He’d been with his Crew for a few years now, they worked well together, even though they had their differences. He already missed visiting the Terra Verse without them, and it was strange being in-game without backup.
“Where the hell are you?” Sam asked.
“Beats me.” Max took another look at the wall of green that surrounded him. “The river’s wide, though, I can’t be too far away from the shore. If I can find the sea, I should be able to orientate myself.”
“Keep an eye out for other players, they might be able to tell you where you are,” Chopsticks suggested.
“Yeah, if you can get them to tell you before they ice you,” Roderick said with an ill-humored tone
“Right.” Helpful. Max carried on, listening to the gentle lapping of the slow-flowing water, and the occasional splash as something moved below him.
“I still don’t see why you don’t just kill your character and respawn at the Hub,” Sam said. “It would probably save time, and at least then you’d know where you are.”
“I’d rather avoid dying.” Max kept his voice fairly low. “I managed to get a few skills on this character, it’s not worth losing any of them when I can spend the time traveling to build them up instead. Every death is just going to set us back.”
“I also don’t want to sit around for an hour waiting for him to respawn,” Chopsticks said.
“Neither do I.” Roderick sighed. “We can’t waste any time getting this character ready.”
“Fine.” The shrug in Sam’s voice was almost audible.
Max carried on along the bank, the hushed tones of his friends talking lost behind the chorus of the jungle.
“I think I hear something,” Chopstic
ks said quickly.
“What?” Max stopped moving and crouched low with his spear held in front of him. He strained his hearing but couldn’t detect anything unusual. “What is it?”
“Uh, it sounded like something tearing through the undergrowth, but it’s stopped now.”
Max let out the breath he’d been holding. “Geez, don’t spook me like that, man.”
“Sorry, dude.”
Max lifted his foot, about to take his next step but stopped when he heard something snap behind him. “There’s something here.”
“All right,” Roderick’s voice was suddenly loud as he switched his attention to Max’s present predicament. “Crowded trees, thick undergrowth, it’s not going to be anything big, it might just be a little herbivore, but we’ll assume the worst. The river bends up ahead, keeping moving, slowly, see if there’s a ford or a downed tree you can use as a crossing. Even if it’s a carnivore, it shouldn’t follow you into the water.”
Max didn’t say anything, but carried on walking beside the river, his footfalls quiet on the soft ground. He kept glancing at the forest but couldn’t see anything moving.
“What if it’s a player?” Chopsticks asked. “It’s unlikely to be some noob all the way out in this wilderness.”
“It’s fine, we’ll handle it, get your bow out, Max,” Roderick instructed evenly.
“His bow?” Chopsticks asked incredulously. “It’s not going to be any use when something jumps out of the bushes from like a foot away, and he’s only got a couple of arrows. Keep the spear out, man.”
“He’ll be able to run and keep range with a bow, and even if he only gets one shot off, that’s a chunk of damage in one hit.” Roderick sounded exasperated.
“And then how long will it take him to switch weapons? Max, find a tree you can climb, get up out of the way and wait it out, it’s not going to be anything bigger than a Velociraptor, which is small, remember. They can climb, but you can fend it off with a spear.”
Max could feel his blood pressure rising as he tried to focus. “Guys…”
“Chopsticks, why are you always trying to undermine me?”
“I’m not! It’s just that your ideas—”
“Shut up, both of you!” Sam snapped at them. “Let Max do his thing.”
Everyone fell silent, Max let out a sigh. “Thanks, Sam.”
He let out another breath. This had been a stressful time, and they’d only just started.
“There’s definitely something here.” Max began stalking forward again. “It’s somewhere to my left, but I haven’t got eyes.”
“It’s difficult to say what it might be without knowing where you are on the Primeva map,” Chopsticks said.
“Just keep moving, Max, it shouldn’t—”
“Shit.” Max saw a flash of a feathered mane and bright orange eyes through the thick shrubs.
“That’s a Utahraptor, Max!” Sam yelled, knowing how much this fight was going to hurt. “Climb or something!”
Climbing was already out of the question, though. As soon as Max made eye contact with the raptor, the jig was up.
The creature leaped forward, clearing the underbrush. The soft ground cushioned Max’s fall a little as the raptor landed heavily on him, one of its feet, with a sickle-like claw, pinned him down.
It opened its long snout, Max’s vision filled with off-white, knife-like teeth. His reactions took over, Max grabbed his spear with both hands and brought it up as the raptor snapped toward his neck.
The jaws clamped around the wooden handle, but Max kept pushing, trying to force the raptor’s head back, in an attempt to thrust the dinosaur off him. He felt so feeble as he strained. And the beast kept pushing down, its teeth sinking into the wood of his spear as it clamped its jaws shut.
Knowing he didn’t have much time before either the spear broke, or his already burning arms gave way, Max began to squirm, trying to struggle his way out from under the beast, but its grip was vice-like, and he could feel talons digging into his body. He thought about reaching for his knife but stopped himself when he remembered that he didn’t have one on this character.
Trying to get his feet underneath him to shove the raptor off, he felt the ground shift beneath him.
Max felt the weight lift from him, but he was tumbling down the steep bank toward the river. He stuck out his arms and legs to stop himself from rolling and then began clawing at the sandy bank, slowing his descent until he stopped sliding.
He took a glance down to see that the predator had toppled twice as far and was just getting back to its feet in the shallow edge of the river.
Not wasting any time, spear still in hand, Max scrambled up to the top of the bank. He rushed to pull out his bow, clumsily nocking an arrow to the string as the raptor sprung upright, scurrying up the loose bank.
He aimed and released the arrow, hearing a thud as it connected solidly with the raptor’s chest. The dinosaur shrieked from the hit but did not slow as it ran at him.
Max pulled out his last arrow and let it fly but missed the slim frame of the creature as it scrambled up toward him.
He tossed the bow aside and grabbed his spear just as the raptor reached the top of the bank. Max met it, thrusting his spear at the raptor, which nimbly ducked to the side to avoid it, slipping a little back down the slope as the ground gave way with every one of its footfalls.
The creature was big for a raptor, nearly as tall as Max even though he was on higher ground. It was covered in a thick coat of feathers that masked the muscle molded to its narrow body.
Max swore that he could see a glimmer of intelligence behind the dino’s burning eyes as it watched him. There was a reason these were Tier-three dinos and were incredibly valuable tames.
“Do you have any poison?” Chopsticks said hurriedly. “It’s got a fast metabolism, if you can get some toxins in it, they’d work fast.”
Max batted away the raptor’s thick snout as it tried to clamber over the edge of the bank at him. “This is all I have on me!”
The raptor backed off, staying just out of reach of Max’s spear, its head moving from side to side on its muscular neck, regarding him intently. It had to take small, frequent steps to stop from slipping back down with the loose sand as it moved along the bank. Max stayed level with it to make sure it had to go past him—and his spear—to get onto solid ground.
“It can’t stay still for too long on the sand without slipping back down into the water, I’m going to try and wait it out.” Max didn’t take his eyes off the raptor, whose dark, wet feathers stuck to its scaly skin.
“Wait it out? We could be here for hours,” Pez’s voice came to him,
“What else do you want me to do?” Max grimaced, warm blood trickling down his front from where he’d been slashed as he checked his health bar, which was already quarter empty, while his stamina climbed up far too slowly. He didn’t have enough in him for a fight. “I don’t want to lose any progress, and there’s a lot of XP in killing this thing.”
There was silence from his friends for a moment before Sam spoke. “How’s your throwing arm feeling?”
“My what?” Max flinched as the raptor feigned a step forward, testing his defense.
“You’re not going to kill it as you are, throw your spear, Max. You might not have any Traits for accuracy or damage, but you might stand a chance with it being so close. If you catch it in the neck or head, I think that’s a kill. The gamble is that if you miss, you’ve got nothing left.”
The raptor chuntered softly, patiently waiting for an opening.
Max gave a short lunge with the spear, but the raptor easily moved out of the way, stepping to charge forward, but stopping as Max brought the spear back up.
He shook his head. “Fuck it!” He brought his arm back and launched the spear down at the raptor’s head.
Even over the short distance, he had managed to misjudge the angle, and overestimate his ability. The flint tip missed the creature’s skull, the wood glance
d off its head.
The raptor didn’t waste a second, and was already up the bank, and had its jaws around Max’s waist by the time he even heard the splash of the spear hitting the river.
He flailed as it threw his body to the ground, it brought its leg up, and its curved, scythe-like claw was the last thing Max saw before the world went black.
***
“That was intense.” Roderick’s face flushed with excitement as Max pulled off the headset and wiped his forehead.
“I need caffeine.” Max shook off the sensation of having his head crushed.
“On it.” Sam went out to the kitchen to avoid the blow-by-blow rehash of the fight.
“That was a big Utahraptor! I haven’t seen one of those in months, we don’t normally get them around the base.” Chopsticks came to sit down on the other side of Max. “We only get Velociraptors and Deinonychus raptors.”
“Thank goodness.” Max placed his VR gear on the coffee table next to the gathering collection of empty beer cans. “That thing was vicious.”
“Yeah, that was rough.” Roderick chuckled. “But you sure made it work for its meal.”
Sam returned, holding four mugs of steaming coffee in her hands.
“Thanks.” Max took a cup. “Keep it coming. It’s gonna be a long night.”
Roderick got up from the sofa and stretched. “As soon as you know which Hub you’ve respawned at, let me know.”
“Why?” Chopsticks asked and then his eyes widened. “You can go meet him.”
“Exactly. Pez to the rescue. And looking at that display, you are going to need some rescuing.” Roderick left the room and Max sipped at his coffee.
“Thanks, guys,” he said, putting his cup down on the table.
“For what?” Sam asked. “Giving you the kick up the ass you needed?”
“Something like that. I know I shouldn’t have just left you guys like that. But sometimes...”
“We know, so don’t get all sentimental on us,” Chopsticks said with unusual bravado. “I couldn’t let you quit, if I didn’t play Terra Verse, I’d have to take up a real hobby.”
