[The Primeval Apocalypse] - Chapter Ten (collaboration with u/hydrael)

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The Primeval Apocalypse by Robert Keene and Alex Raizman

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Before the apocalypse, I had never fully comprehended that I am merely made out of meat. But once the modern world had been engulfed by a gritty Land of the Lost rewrite, that realization had come to me more and more frequently—usually shortly after I locked eyes with anything with vertical pupils.

As the feather-crested critter sized me up, I realized that I didn’t have as good of a way to get out of this. Most of the time, when I was this close to something that was this hungry, I had options. I could run, I could hide, or I could fight. Right now, though, every choice required that I get out of this room with the detection-suppressing censer, and with this thing trying to eat me, there was no way to do that without lighting up the Detection skill of every Mandrill in town.

I didn’t want to use Charming on this creature. I really wanted to get an aurochs, and having to wait for the ten minute cooldown was going to get me killed. I was already pushing my luck by investigating here, so I couldn’t have possibly spared that much more time before someone noticed the open door and raised an alarm.

But just the same, the sudden awareness of how much of my body weight was meat hit some primal part of my brain. Logically, I should have been more worried about what the Mandrills would do to me if the alpha circled back to follow up on his paranoia. But emotionally, the sight of a lot of teeth forced me to make a snap decision.

I activated Charming, directed at the lizard creature.

It immediately calmed. The hunger didn’t leave it, but its toothy maw closed and it went back to considering me with curiosity rather than violent intent. What was more was that I received a bit of information in return. It was a Baby Baurusuchus, and it was a valid pet, if I could convince it to join me willingly.

The idea that it was a baby was alarming. It was nearly the size of a horse. How big could these things get? I’d never seen anything like it in the region, either. Where did the Mandrills get it? Where were the critter’s parents?

Of course, the prospect distracted me immediately.

How big could it get? In the post-system world, size didn’t necessarily mean power, but it was a reasonable indicator. Getting an Aurochs was picking up a pet that was powerful now, but I’d never seen one go beyond being a giant rock with legs. The Baurusuchus, though, could be an investment. I might have to spend some time protecting it for now, but…

Sometimes, the best investments are the most uncertain.

Actually, that’s probably not true.

But I had been making my living by taking risks for a while now. It had just become a part of my personality now.

“Alright, little guy,” I said, trying to sound soothing, even though I knew it was understanding my meaning more than my tone. “I don’t want to be your enemy. I think we could be friends, don’t you?”

Despite the pacification, the creature was still distressed. It was extremely hungry, but with the ability to immediately sate that hunger sharply limited, its other anxieties were starting to come forward. It was afraid of what the Mandrills wanted to do to it. It was lost and scared and they’d left it alone in the dark where all its senses were cut off for so long. Anybody or anything that had been treated that way was in no condition to make a decision.

Out of habit, I looked around the room. The censer was still suppressing my Detection skill, but I could just look around and use my normal senses without relying on the system lighting things up for me.

Once more, the sharpness added by becoming a Beastmaster paid off. Despite the scent-dampening vapor, there was a salty smell coming from somewhere nearby. In the corner of the small building there was a tall freestanding cabinet, and opening it revealed the source. There were three clay jugs on the bottom of the cabinet, and on the middle shelf was a wooden case surrounded by several coils of the same crude rope that the creature had been bound with. I quickly checked the jugs. There was a gentle sensation of my Alchemy skill gaining a level as I identified the contents.

***Masquerade Poison (Concentrate)***This fluid is made from [Insufficient Skill] [Insufficient Skill] and Distillation of Wood. Enemies afflicted by it will automatically fail all Detection skill checks for one minute, and have their detection radius dramatically reduced for an hour afterwards. If boiled, Masquerade Poison fumes produce a cloud which no Detection skill, spell, or effect can penetrate.

That explained the censer. With so much of it here, it seemed unlikely that they would run out anytime soon. Whatever they had planned for the creature, they could have held it for weeks, well beyond its capacity to stave off starvation.

The rope was self-explanatory. They’d brought more than they needed and just had to have a place to stow it. But the wood box was interesting. It was the source of the salty smell. Sliding the lid open, the smell went from faint to overpowering, despite the Masquerade vapor. Inside, I found something I never expected to see again.

“Oh shit,” I said instantly, before I could stop myself. “Jackpot!”

Smoked fish. I didn’t recognize the exact fish species but there was at least ten pounds of delicious preserved meat in here. I couldn’t picture where it had come from, but that was mostly because I was trying to stop myself from shoving it all in my mouth at once.

There was a thump against my hip, and I looked down to see the baby Baurusuchus looking up at me, its nostrils flaring open to absorb the smell just as eagerly as I did.

“Oh, this is probably for you,” I said, grabbing a larger chunk of it. “Maybe they did mean to keep you in here for a while. Though I can’t guess why they’ve been starving you.”

The creature opened its mouth and eagerly accepted the chunk of smoked fish. I couldn’t help myself, and grabbed a smaller strip of it as well. Without modern methods, it was much saltier than I expected.

My Wild Empathy translated the Baurusuchus’s meaning as it ate. It remembered being fed this by the Mandrills before. But they’d always only fed it just a little bit one time a day. It had tried to take more than it was given a few days ago, and afterwards the Mandrills tied its jaws shut and didn’t come back to feed it again.

“Rude of them,” I said, making conversation as I tossed another chunk of fish into the critter’s hungry maw. “Seems like a very unsubtle way to tell them they weren’t giving you enough. Starving you afterwards is just irresponsible.”

The reptile agreed. Through Wild Empathy I learned it hadn’t even enjoyed the extra it had taken. The thick hide and hair of the Mandrill was unappetizing, the meat was stringy, and that one bite was less than even the miserly servings of fish it had been given.

I tried not to laugh.

The Mandrills weren’t starving it on purpose. They were just afraid of getting bit again.

Considering the lengths I’d gone to avoid the critter biting me for a first time, I couldn’t blame them. But this little guy didn’t understand. It was just hungry.

As it ate, the creature looked up at me with a much friendlier demeanor. Its expression conveyed that it would follow me to the ends of the earth, so long as I kept feeding it.

On the surface, that seemed to be enough of an agreement  to become my first pet, but I wasn’t willing to accept that. The thing was starving; feeding it wasn’t getting it to agree with me, it was coercion. It was only giving me big friendly puppy dog eyes because it wanted continued access to the box of fish. But the box’s supply was not endless, and I didn’t want it to become sullen or violent if it interpreted the end of this bounty as me breaking my end of the deal.

“I want you to join me on my adventures,” I said at last, “but I need you to understand that I’m not just asking you to follow me around while I throw food at you. There will be action, danger, and there might even be some slightly longer pauses between meals than you might like. You won’t just be signing on to stick with me through the good times but also the bad.”

The Baurusuchus needed a second to think about that. It liked the idea of adventure and action, and even danger, but it had been starved for days now. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t want to go back to that.

“I’ll do my best,” I said quickly, around another mouthful of smoked fish, “I promise. You won’t be neglected or imprisoned, and if you have to go without food, it’ll be because I’m going without food, too.” I waved at the box of fish. “Never when I have this kind of bounty right here. This would be a partnership, after all. The good and the bad will be on both of us equally.”

I thought for a moment. What was the best way to determine if I could offer it more than an occasional meal?

“Tell you what. How about you tell me what you want? What is it you want out of life?”

I tossed the creature another chunk of smoked fish while it considered my offer. Continued survival was its primary motivator, but it did have something beyond that. It was in the interest of the desire for survival, but it was very specific.

It craved power.

More than the feather-crested reptile wanted anything—even this whole box of smoked fish—was to be strong. To be fearsome. To become a beast that the Mandrills wouldn’t dare approach without open terror in their eyes. It tried to convey something more specific to me, but Wild Empathy had some limits. With a frustrated shake of its head it tried to convey something that it remembered seeing once before, but with more complex connotations than the Beastmaster ability could grasp.

All that I managed to understand was that it wanted to grow up to be great and terrible, like some kind of massive scaled god.

I knelt down in front of the critter, and met its slit-pupiled eyes.

“You know what?” I said, barely containing a grin so massive, it made my cheeks hurt. “I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”