by Dan Thomas
Abe shifted uncomfortably as Chopsticks tried to lay the heavy weave of leather and metal plates over his head. Luckily, with a bit of tugging and shifting, Chopsticks managed to get the armor to sit properly over Abe’s head.
Max nodded his head. “That...that is awesome.”
Chopsticks gave him a thumbs-up, a grin plastered across his face before he leaned against Abe’s neck to fasten the head armor in place.
“Looking good!”
Max spun around to see Pez and Ticket approaching from around the storehouse, Ticket patting Taz as she walked past.
“Abe is going to be invincible!” Chopsticks called, before sliding down his neck and hopping to the ground, turning to admire his work.
“Yeah, he is,” Pez stepped next to Max, looking up at Abe as the dino shook his body, much like a dog would, except he was a twenty-foot-long dinosaur with a metal hat that clanged together loudly. “You two did a good job putting that together so fast.”
“Well, it’s not done yet,” Max said. “And Chopsticks did most of the work.”
“Someone had to step in for our chief craftsman,” Chopsticks chuckled. “Glad you guys like it. How’s the battering ram going, dude?”
“It’s finished, we’ve just got to find a dino to stick on top of it.” Pez paused. “Come have a look, maybe you can advise what dino we should think about taming.”
“Hell, yeah!” Chopsticks jogged over as Pez turned away, and they headed for the storehouse.
Max turned to look at Ticket, who was smiling as she watched their two friends disappear behind the storehouse. “You look happy.”
Sam laughed lightly. “I guess I am. It just looks like it’s all coming together.”
“Yeah,” Max looked back at Abe, the sunlight glinting off of the shiny gray iron and ruddy copper of his helmet as he turned to look at them. “I guess it is.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Heads!” Ticket called out as Pez swung his stick at Max. Too late, it smacked Murf in the side of the head and sent him reeling backward, the world blurring around him for a few moments. His arms flailed like windmills as he tried to keep his balance, but he gave into gravity as his heel caught on a loose stone on the ground.
“Nice landing.” Pez looked down at him with a broad grin on his face as he offered Max his hand. “Go again?”
“Sure, I love it when you go easy on me.” Max reached for Pez’s hand and his friend hauled him to his feet.
“How’s the head?” Ticket asked as she joined the two players.
“Sore.” Max rubbed the back of his head. “But ready for revenge.”
“Dream on, Murf.” Pez stepped away and took up a fighting stance. “You’re going down.” He pointed his finger at the ground. “Right there.”
Max dug his heel into the dirt. “I’ve marked the spot.”
“I like that confidence, Max,” Ticket clicked her fingers. “Sorry, Pez, I’m betting against you here.”
Pez gave her a wolfish grin. “You’re on.”
Max gulped; he had become a bargaining chip. Well, more like a punching bag.
“Hey, I’m teaching Murf a valuable lesson here.” Pez was all innocence as he cocked his head to one side and grinned at Ticket.
“I think he’s learned how to land on his butt already,” Ticket countered.
“Yeah, are you helping me train to fight or just showing off?” Max watched his friends’ cheeks flush a little. Max didn’t need his quarterstaff to land a knockout blow of his own.
“Sorry, I’ll let you win next time if you think that’ll help you when it comes to fighting the Ravagers.” Pez ducked his head to hide his face from Ticket.
“Aww, is poor Pezzy Wezzy upset?” Ticket made a face and pouted at Pez. She’d completely missed Pez’s reason for embarrassment.
Max was willing to gloss over it too since this was meant to be a sparring lesson for Murf. “That is not a good look, Ticket.” Max chuckled.
“So now you want to take us both on?” Ticket challenged, raising her staff and taking a step toward Max.
“Nope, I think I’ll pass. One of you can take me out, we don’t need two.” Max nodded toward Pez. “Come at me, bro.”
Pez swung his staff behind his back and twirled around as he made his attack. Max ducked, altered his grip on his quarterstaff so both hands were on one end, and swung at Pez’s feet. With a light hop, Pez evaded the attack and swung his staff to land a blow on Max’s back.
The breath left his body and he fell forward, putting his hand out to break his fall. Pez stepped back and raised his stick, ready to take his final shot.
Instead of feeling the impact, he heard the clatter of wood on wood.
Max looked up from the ground. Ticket stood over him, her own staff blocking the attack from Pez.
Pez backed up, swinging his staff back around into a guard. “So, we are taking it easy on Murf then?”
Sam gave him a sly smile. “I didn’t say I was betting on Murf, I said I was betting against you.” She brought the staff up, end pointed toward Pez.
He raised an eyebrow. “Oh? You’re approaching me?”
Sam raised one hand beckoning him over.
Max rolled over, getting to his feet and moving out of the way as his two friends faced off with each other.
Sam lunged, spearing the staff forward. Pez swung his staff to knock the strike aside, but Ticket tucked into a roll, moving underneath the swing with the momentum of her own attack.
Pez spun around, but Ticket was already on her feet, throwing another jab at Pez, who brought his staff up to deflect the blow. As the end of Ticket’s weapon thrust over Pez’s shoulder, he flicked the staff out at Ticket’s midriff, but she easily stepped out of the way, swinging wide with her staff at Pez’s side.
Pez blocked the attack again, immediately bringing his staff around to his other side to stop a second blow, then over his head for a third.
Max could see the concentration, and ghosts of smiles on both Ticket and Pez as their weapons clattered together with each back and forth. Both moved like lightning as they danced around each other.
Sam threw another attack slightly off-balance, overextending herself. Max could see that Pez clocked it, and whipped one arm out to grab the staff, tucking it under his arm.
Keeping hold of her end of the staff, she tilted backward and brought her feet up, booting Pez in the face as he was pulled forward.
Sam fell backward to the ground as Pez let go of her staff, stumbling. Before he could regain his balance, Ticket was already back on her feet. She jabbed her staff at Pez, hitting him square in the chest, sending him toppling.
Max heard the air forced from his lungs as he hit the ground, Ticket keeping her staff firmly planted on Pez’s chest.
“Welp,” Pez coughed.
“Looks like I win,” Ticket smirked.
Pez grabbed hold of the staff, and Ticket yanked backward, pulling him to his feet.
“Looks like it,” Pez brushed himself off. “I guess I need to forfeit.”
“Oh, that’s a shame,” Ticket patted his chest. “Have something to back up your talk next time.” She turned and walked away. “Okay, fun over. Let’s go feed some dinosaurs.”
Pez scoffed as she headed toward the vegetable patch. “The nerve.”
“I thought you were the master fighter around here,” Max stepped over to Pez as he picked up his staff.
Pez took his eyes off Ticket. “I am. But that wasn’t fighting, I’m hoping that was strategy.”
Max frowned. “...Right?”
Pez shook his head. “Come on, let’s go lend a hand.”
The two jogged onto the path, running to catch up with Ticket as she opened the gate in the fence.
“Nothing like a bit of gardening after a fight,” Pez said as they followed Ticket into the growing patch.
The railed fence encircled the entire vegetable area, which had a narrow stone slab path that ran in between the rows of plowed and
planted ground. Hollow bamboo shoots ran alongside the path, drip-feeding water into the dirt from the trough along the moss wall, just on the far side of the fenced area. Near that, but on the inside of the fence was the farm shack, where they kept their agricultural tools.
“Do you think the Ravagers cultivate anything, or just take what they want from other crews?” Pez asked over his shoulder.
“They’d take the easy option whenever they could. I’m sure that they’d have to grow at least some stuff, though.” Max closed the sturdy wooden garden gate built with the sole purpose of keeping their herbivorous dinosaurs out of the large area the crew had painstakingly cultivated.
It had been one of their most important projects, meaning that they didn’t have to constantly forage for food, or take the dinos outside of the base to feed them. It had not only saved countless hours, but it had also saved their lives several times when they had been able to wait out a threat from within the safety of their base. It was also one of the reasons they only had a few carnivores tamed.
“Okay, you all know your jobs,” Ticket said. “Let’s get them all fed. I have things to do in real life.”
As Pez and Ticket went around with buckets picking fruits from the various bushes, Max headed for the shack. The small wooden building needed a little maintenance, but it was still in good condition, though the door did squeak as Max opened it.
Inside was a small worktable, tools ranging from shovels, hoes, rakes, and scrapers were scattered over the surface, floor, and hanging on walls. There was also a small stack of wooden crates.
Max coughed as he entered the dusty room.
“Geez, this really needs clearing out,” he muttered to himself as he sifted through the tools. He grabbed a spare flint sickle, which was made out of a tick-shaped stick with a flint blade fixed to a notch nestled in the crook of the tick, running along the shorter length of the tick. While not as durable as a metal sickle would have been, they were just as effective, and replacing them was much easier than maintaining a metal version of the tool.
He stuck the handle of the sickle into his belt, then bent down and grabbed the handles of a wooden wheelbarrow. He backed it out through the door, the wooden wheel bouncing down the doorstep.
Spinning it around, Max wheeled it along the stone path, heading for the part of the patch that was covered in dense florets of ferns. He let the barrow rest next to them. Taking the sickle, he cut off a handful of fronds, placing them into the barrow before moving onto the next plant, taking more leaves.
Before long, large leaves filled the wheelbarrow, and he moved on to pick yams and fruit from their stubby Wa-Kau tree they’d planted some time ago. Casting a look over his shoulder at Pez and Ticket, he shifted the wheelbarrow to their second fern patch.
“You’re doing Chopsticks’ chores?” Ticket asked quietly.
Max jumped. “Jeez, you nearly gave me a heart attack.” Max straightened up.
“He’s been shirking his duties here, you know. With your training and stuff.” Ticket helped cut through the tough stems of the ferns.
“He’s busy.”
“We’re all busy.” Ticket didn’t shy away from the awkward topic.
“He’s busy trying to figure out a way for me to get into the Ravagers’ camp. You know, reconnaissance and stuff.” Max lied far too easily for his friend and now he’d given himself and Chopsticks more work to do. A reconnaissance mission.
“You cover for him far too much, Max.” Ticket hacked through a few more thick stems and threw the leaves into the barrow. “Chopsticks needs to know what’s at stake and what we’ve got to lose. When you go into the Ravagers’ camp, we need to know we can rely on him not to disappear on one of his stupid missions.”
“He knows.” Max tugged the last of the fern fronds out and threw them into the barrow. “I’ll go get started on feeding the dinosaurs.”
He turned away from Ticket and pushed the barrow out of the vegetable area, his muscles straining under the extra weight of the full wheelbarrow. Holic would have coped with no problem, Murf still needed strength training.
“Do you want a hand with that?” Pez asked as he joined Max on the other side of the gate. He’d had a net in one hand which was what they used to transport bundles of dried meat around the base.
“I can manage,” Max replied.
“Murf is in pretty good shape, all things considered.” Pez side-eyed Max. “You know when we came up with this idea, I didn’t think we’d follow through, I figured it was a way to get us all working together. But we’re actually doing it.”
“You’re right, it has brought us together.” Max hesitated. “Considering this was your idea, there are times when it feels like you’re not fully on board.”
“I am fully on board,” Pez said sternly. “I’m just not as optimistic as Ticket—AH!”
Pez covered his ears as a high-pitched whistling sound pierced the air. Max grunted and followed suit, feeling his eardrums were about to burst from the sound.
As suddenly as it had started, the sound stopped.
“What the hell was that?” Pez looked up into the sky.
Max could even hear the dinos inside the stables shuffling around, they must have heard the sound, too, and were now on edge.
“Did you guys hear that?” Ticket called as she ran toward them from the growing area.
“Yeah, we were just—argh!” Max cried as the shrill noise started again as if someone was blowing a gigantic dog whistle.
“I think we’re under attack!” Pez yelled above the noise.
“Holy crap, you think so?” Max looked toward the gate. None of the noise traps they had scattered throughout the jungle had sounded.
The sound stopped again, but Max’s ears were ringing now.
Sam glanced around the base. “All right, Max, go inside, release all of the dinos. If someone’s coming, we’re not prepared, so we’re going to need as much muscle as possible, and then stay inside.”
“What?” Max exclaimed, reaching for his bow. “Why?”
“Because if it’s the Ravagers knocking at our door, they’ll see you, and this whole plan is ruined,” Ticket said.
“I’ll get on the wall,” Pez grabbed his bow as well and turned to run for the walls.
“There’s no point in this plan if we don’t have anything left anyway, we’re going to need as many of us as possible.” Max kept glancing toward the gate, expecting it to be knocked down any second.
“Look, if things aren’t looking good, come out and lend a hand, but for now, stay hidden.” She stepped away, drawing her own bow. “And get hold of Chopsticks!”
“Yeah, I will…” Max furrowed his brow. “Wait, I think I know where Chopsticks is.”
Sam stopped and turned back to him. “What?”
“Hey!”
Sam and Max looked at the gate, where Pez had frozen at the familiar voice.
“Is anyone going to let me in?” Chopsticks called from the other wall.
“Sonofa,” Ticket breathed a sigh of relief.
The two watched as Pez put in the combination, opened the gate a crack, and peered through before swinging it wide open.
On the other side stood Chopsticks with a smug look on his face. Next to him was a dino that resembled a Parasaurolophus with its stocky hind legs, slimmer forelegs, tall body, and crested head.
However, unlike the colorful hide of the Parasaurolophus, it was a deep navy color, and the long-curved crest was replaced with a jagged axe shape instead of the normal smooth curved headpiece.
“Chopsticks!” Pez yelled as Max and Ticket approached. “What the hell, man?”
“What?” he asked innocently. “Did I miss something?”
“What’s that?” Ticket pointed to the dino.
Chopsticks beamed at her. “Let me introduce you to Pluto! He’s a Lambeosaurus. I found him wandering the edge of the plains and I managed to snag him.”
“Lambeo…” Pez ran a hand through his hair. “W
eren’t they only released into the game last week?”
“Yep! They’re a new Tier-two dino, but they can do this really cool thing that really freaks out other dinos, listen!”
Max held up his hands. “No! I think we’re good, we’ve already heard what he can do.”
“Huh. He was really that loud?”
“Oh, yeah,” Pez nodded. “But the question is, what are we going to do with him? We don’t have time to build and feed another dinosaur.”
Chopsticks shrugged. “I dunno, I just thought it could be useful.”
Sam snapped her fingers. “Pluto is going to be useful. I know where you’ve been all this time.”
Chopsticks’ eyes went wide, and he glanced at Max. “...You do?”
“Yes!” Ticket clapped her hands. “You’ve been tracking down a dino that Max can use to barter his way into the Ravagers.”
Chopsticks looked at her in disbelief. “Yeah! That’s, uh, that’s right! Wait...” His face began to cloud with disappointment as he realized what that meant.
Pez slapped Chopsticks on the back. “Nice job, man! We knew we could count on you.”
“That’s it,” Ticket grew serious. “I think we’re ready.”
They all stared at Ticket.
She nodded her head. “Yeah, I think tomorrow we put everything in motion.”
Max scanned the faces of his friends, just happy that they all looked as unsure as he was feeling.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“I can’t believe we’re about to hand over another of our dinos to them.” Chopsticks had been making the same complaint since yesterday. The same complaint Max had been ignoring since yesterday.
“Okay, so you know the plan?” Max asked. They had trekked across Primeva for half a day to reach the Ravagers’ base. Chopsticks had insisted on accompanying Max. Not, Max suspected, because he was worried about Murf not making it but because he wanted to spend as much time as possible with Pluto.
“We all know the plan,” Chopsticks said sullenly.
“Once I’m inside, I can’t have any contact with any of you in-game. Not under any circumstances.” Max watched Chopsticks closely. “Not even if anything happens with the small dinos.”
