“I’m on it,” I said as I surveyed the site. Sheela and Kacerie were chopping the indents that we would use to lay the fire in, and Trel also had an axe in her hand. I kind of wanted to bring someone with me for safety, but I didn’t want to pull them away from their tasks.
“I’ll be quick,” I said. “I’ll take Bob. Sonny and Cher can stay here for defense. If you guys need to get back into the fort quickly, take Hope.” I didn’t actually know if Sonny and Cher would defend my friends, but I sent them a thought, and it seemed as if the two parasaurs went from munching on the grass and leaves to glancing around the site with an unnatural alertness.
“Got it,” Trel said. “Be careful.”
A moment later I was back at our camp and attaching the five clay baskets to his saddle. Then I gave Galmine a quick kiss, updated her on our progress, and then turned to leave.
Before I could exit, Jinx nuzzled against my leg. I reached down to pet the little guy, and he surprised me by jumping into my arms.
“Aww,” Galmine gushed. “He loves you so much. You should take him with you.”
“Hmmm, yeah. I think I will.” The cat-sized chocobo-looking dino weighed a bit under twenty pounds, so I couldn’t quite keep him on my shoulder like a parrot, but I could just carry him up onto the saddle.
I took Jinx out of the fort and then commanded him to run up and perch on the front of Bob’s back. He let out a confirmation chirp and then did as I asked.
A few moments later, my little pal and I were riding across the clearing past the piles of corpses that sat at the edge of our clearing.
The smell was all sorts of terrible.
We’d been a bit lucky all day, since the wind was blowing from the direction of the forest where we worked, but now that I moved to the edges of our domain, the scent of dead dino corpses was almost overwhelming, and I had to fight against my gag reflex. There were tons of scavengers feasting on the bodies, but the only big dinos were the vulture-like ones I’d seen yesterday. There weren’t any carcasses near our work site, so the creatures hadn’t bothered us. I just hope the smell didn’t bring something massive and dangerous to our clearing.
The sooner we had these walls up the better.
Jinx let out an angry squawk when we rode past a group of white feathered dinos that looked like forty pound versions of him, and I guessed the creatures were his distant cousins. They looked up at us when we passed, but they were too busy chomping on a rotting body to care about our passage.
Just to mix things up a bit, I took a slightly different path toward the lake. It wasn’t the shortest way, so it meant I spent a bit more time in the jungle, but I was worried that my consistent habit might be something an enemy could track, and I didn’t want to get caught off guard by someone waiting to ambush me.
Maybe I was paranoid, but the distant smoke in the jungle hadn’t been caused by a dinosaur, so I knew there were other tribes out there.
Passage through the jungle was slow, and the crowded trees felt a little claustrophobic, but I was soon cresting the hill toward the lake. The smoke in the distance was now gone, but I still spent a few moments at the edge of the slope with my head just a bit above the top so I wasn’t making much of a profile.
The trikes were back at the lake, but the spot where the parasaurs were normally at was vacant. I saw a trio of red feathered raptors on the far side of the water, but they looked as if they were smaller than the green ones that we had been fighting, and they were a good ten minute run from where I would pick up my clay. Other than those two groups of dinos, the lake was deserted, so I crested the hill quickly and pushed Bob down the other side.
“We have to do this quick,” I said to Jinx as soon as Bob got to the edge of the finger part of the lake where the clay was. I paused for a few moments before I got off and paid attention to the two dinos’ heads. Neither one of them seemed nervous about their surrounding, so I commanded Bob to kneel, and then I untied all the baskets.
Bob took a quick drink from the edge of the lake while I scooped the clay into the baskets as quickly as I could. I decided to tie each one back on the saddle as soon as I finished, instead of filling all five and then doing the job. It was a bit less efficient, but I didn’t want to leave everything behind if I had to run. I didn’t know why I felt so nervous, but it was probably because I was out here alone, and it was getting close to dusk.
By the time I filled the fourth basket with clay, I’d started to calm down a bit. Jinx was a good watchdog, and he seemed happy enough to run around the beach and attack a group of small frogs he found. I soon had the fifth basket of clay tied up on Bob’s saddle, and I called my buddy back to me so we could go back home.
“But before we go…” I said as I turned to look at the trikes. It looked like the same male and two females that I’d observed for the last three days. They were two lake-fingers over, and it would only take me a few minutes to ride over there.
My Tame ability was a level three now, and triceratops had three horns. Perhaps it was a stupid justification, but I felt confident I could tame one of the giant dinos, and I hadn’t really felt that way when I was level two.
“What do you think, Jinx? Can I do it?”
The blue bird let out a chirp that sounded a lot like “Sure, Victor. You are the fucking man. Go get some new dinos!” So I tapped my heels on Bob and steered him around the finger parts of the lake.
As I got closer to the trikes, a small sliver of doubt began to worm into my stomach.
These things were huge. Yeah, Bob, Sonny, and Cher were huge, but the smallest trike female was about three to four feet taller at the shoulder than Bob, and it was just as long. The horns looked to be almost as long as I was tall, but that could have just been me exaggerating a bit because they looked so fearsome.
The legs were thick, broad, and the front foot ended in distinct toes that looked like horse hooves. The rear legs were even bulkier than the front and more toe-hooves. Each of the hooves was just as large as my chest, and I imagined that the beast’s shits were probably bigger than me.
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” I said as I fought against my fear. The male of the group probably outweighed Bob by five times, and I guessed it would have no problem pushing one of its horns through my mount’s chest. Parasaurs really didn’t have any weapons besides their size, and they looked like children compared to the squat and powerful triceratops.
If I fucked this up and got impaled, my friends would never know what happened to me. Maybe they would figure it out, but they would have a really hard time surviving.
I pushed the negative thoughts out of my head and focused on my task. There was one female in the water, but the male and second female were standing on the beach and munching on algae. The male was the closest to me, and there wasn’t really a way for me to get around him. I’d either have to tame him first, or I’d have to wait for him to wander away so that I could go after one of the females.
“That will probably just piss him off,” I muttered as I looked at the male. He looked like the kind of guy who would cut a fool who messed with his women, so I took a deep breath and prepared myself to go for the big score first.
“Hey big fella,” I said as I urged Bob toward the male. He was looking out over the lake, and he didn’t turn around as I approached. That could have been good, or it could be terrible since he might get scared when he finally noticed me.
“You are one handsome fella,” I said as I urged Bob a bit closer. My steed didn’t seem to think this was a good idea, but I quieted his fears by rubbing my hands on his neck.
“Your scales look really good, and your horns are all sorts of magnificent. No wonder you have two ladies, I’m honestly surprised you don’t have more babes hanging out with you.” I was some thirty feet from him now, and the creature’s size was becoming more impressive. He was practically a house with horns and an armored crest.