Dododex

ARK: Survival Evolved & Ascended Companion

The Arks: Over Heaven (by Ben)

Chapter 78: Lavish Lava Lair

Original Post Date: Jul 5, 2024

Note: Story starts in Wyvern, Aerial ABC backwards filter and has a Prologue. Last chapter in Thorny Dragon, next chapter in Terror Bird.

~

After a few days of hard work, the Book Club Camp quickly went through its repairs and fixed itself up with ease. Simon brushed his hair back and glanced around at the place. He could still hear the cannonfire and the blazing flames from that day of desperation.

“I still can’t believe we were attacked like that,” Simon thought, glancing at the two men tied up and lined up at the walls of a hut. Paige was heckling them and interrogating them. When one didn’t respond, she’d whack her club into their side until they replied. Simon sighed, looking off at the campfire where Skyler was lying on a log, a hand to her head and her face red hot. Sunny was pouring cold water over her face while Gary fed her hot soup.

After Skyler, Rick, and Gary’s return from their expedition Skyler had come down with some strange fever that just seemed to worsen Skyler’s condition day by day. She couldn’t even walk around before feeling tired.

He heard the grass crunch from behind him, and he turned around to see Bobby walking up to him with a stack of logs and firewood. He dropped them down onto the ground.

“Whew! I’m done for today. Has Skyler gotten any better?” Bobby asked, peering past Simon and toward the fire. Simon shook his head.

“Afraid not Bobby. This fever isn’t going away like Ben’s or Aurora’s. She might have caught something bad.”

Skyler let out a huge cough into her elbow, green mist flying onto her arm. Sunny raised her eyebrow and backed away. Rick walked up to Gary and Sunny, looked at Skyler, and then opened his mouth to speak. Upon his words, Gary looked at Skyler in shock, and then his expression shifted to one of worry. Sunny turned to Paige, Bobby, and Simon and called out to them.

“EMERGENCY MEETING!” Sunny called out to them. Paige looked at the two tied up men one last time before spitting on them and giving them a kick to the ribs. Simon turned to Bobby and shrugged.

“It must be pretty important if we’re having an emergency meeting. Let’s go,” Bobby replied.

“To be fair I don’t think we’ve ever had one before.”

Bobby and Simon walked over to the campfire, where Paige and Rick had already taken a seat around the fire. Sunny turned to face the others, and then nodded her head at Rick. Rick turned to the others, rubbing sweat off his forehead.

“Skyler seems to have contracted something called ‘swamp fever’. It’s a deadly disease that literally comes from the swamp. I read about it in Tales of Evolution and Survival. One of the main character’s friends got it after being attacked by leeches in the swamp. It gave her a very wet cough, fever, and eternal exhaustion. Skyler probably got it after being attacked by that spider during our expedition. The only way to cure it is to collect the blood of leeches and grind it up with the yolk of a special egg.”

Paige clutched onto her club tightly and began to flip it up and down.

“So we go to the swamp, exterminate some bugs, and then come back to save Skyler?” Paige asked. Sunny shook her head.

“That’s the thing. We don’t know if those scouts of June’s will come back to assault us again. We can’t risk this place being burnt to the ground, it’s our only base of operations and all our resources are here. We’ll be without shelter, resources, food, and open to predators’ attack,” Sunny argued, “If all of us go then nobody will be able to defend the camp, AND no one will be able to watch over the prisoners or Skyler.”

Gary scratched his chin, then turned to Paige.

“Did you get any information out of our prisoners?” Gary asked Paige. Paige leaned back on the log and crossed her arms in irritation.

“Not really. They just gave us basic info like their leader, her power, and where their base is located. It’s all the way west of the island at the red Obelisk,” Paige revealed. Simon stepped forward.

“That’s where Chris went! West to go scouting! The Crimson Crusader probably took him prisoner or something at the castle! We should bring the fight to them and free him!” Simon shouted, slamming his hand on a non-existent table.

“But we can’t waste our time going there Simon. We have to help Skyler first.”

Simon looked at Skyler solemnly. He closed his eyes gently.

“Right. We shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. They probably have a lot of forces. It’ll be a costly and tedious uphill battle for us,” Simon muttered. Gary took a glance at Skyler’s implant. Gary’s eyes lit up with an idea.

“We need to help Skyler, but at the same time we need enough manpower to defend ourselves from another potential attack. We found an artifact at the cave me, Skyler, and Gary went to. When Skyler touched it, it activated and she was able to use it. She mastered the art of a hunter instantly. If we find more of the artifacts, I don’t think any of those scouts stand a chance!”

“But where could we find any of them? Only Skyler knows where they are with her crazy dreams. And she doesn’t seem to be in the right state of mind to know,” Paige murmured. Skyler shifted in her log, her eyes shut and sweat pouring down her face. She began to shiver.

“Bobby knows,” she uttered, pain in her voice.

All heads turned to him, and he shrugged with an uneasy grin.

“What?! Guys! I’m not a prophet, I'm just a builder! I’ve literally only built and gone on a few material gathering expeditions and that’s it-” Bobby suddenly paused, the memory of finding the golden egg fresh on his memory again. His lips curved into an O.

“Wait. Nevermind. I remember now! When me and Simon went on a resource gathering expedition, we found a golden egg laying on the sand. So we took it. First off, that must be the egg that we need to make the cure. And second, before we left I saw a weird looking crevice in the wall that seemed to be emitting so much heat! It was like a furnace just standing in front of it. I think that must be it.”

“So who should go there?” Paige asked, “And who should stay behind?”

“We need someone strong to watch over the camp. I think it should be you, Rick,” Gary said, looking at Rick. Rick’s eyes widened.

“M-me? Strong?”

“Yeah. You’re strong,” Gary said. He closed his eyes, “And I’m not.”

Sunny looked at her brother in worry,

“I suppose that’s fair enough. Then me, Gary, and Paige can go to the swamp. I guess Bobby and Simon can go to the cave then if that’s the case.”

“Whaaaat?” Bobby said in astonishment, “B-but we’re not fighters! We’re builders or whatever man!”

Simon turned to Bobby with a snort.

“I think you’re forgetting what happened when those scouts tried to attack last night… We kicked THREE of their butts! I don’t think a few bugs will hurt us.”

“I dunno man if they hurt Skyler they’ll probably hurt us!”

“It’s worth a shot. Come on, we have to do it for Skyler!”

Bobby’s lips quivered, and he fiddled with his thumbs nervously.

“Fine! Fine, we can go. Even though there’s probably going to be a whole bunch of critter-crawlers there just waiting to tear us to shreds!”

Rick glanced at Bobby’s fearful expression, and a smile grew on his face.

“Maybe you don’t have to, Bobby.”

Bobby looked at Rick in confusion.

“What do you mean maybe I don’t have to?”

Rick looked over at the crop plots with a mischievous smirk.

“Mmm, bug repellant. That will certainly do the trick, Bobby.”

~

With little time to spare on the clock, after Rick created enough buckets of bug repellant to go around for everyone, all of them were on their way to their designated missions. Bobby and Simon were traveling along the river south on top of Stream the kaprosuchus. Stream leapt and skipped along the sands, dashing past all local predators and squashing dodos along the way. (Maybe these bastards aren’t so useless after all).

Simon scratched his neck, adjusting the straps of his backpack to make it more comfortable. He tugged on the reins again, and with one final leap they made it to the end of the river, where there was nothing but expansive ocean. Waves crashed onto the beach, and Bobby’s eyes were pinned on a small crevice wedged in between a cliff. Heat waves radiated from it like the sun was inside. He pointed at it.

“This is it. The cave.”

Simon took his backpack off his shoulders and dropped it onto the ground. He opened it up and took out two buckets of a weird pale green slimy substance. This was the bug repellant.

“Alright. Let’s put this on and get inside. And out. I don’t think we should stay in there for long if we want to keep our consciousness,”

The two of them began to rub the bug repellant on them like it was sunscreen, and then on Stream too. Freshly applied, they took out their weapons. Bobby took out a large hammer, while Simon brandished a large battle axe. Simon twirled it around like it was a stick, his implant glowing.

“Let’s go inside and hopefully we don’t have to fight any bugs.”

The three of them walked into the cave, heat waves instantly blasting onto their face. As they did, they noticed they were on some large rock that was jutting out of a lake of lava. Both of them let out gasps as they walked inside. Sweat began to pour down their faces.

“THAT’S A LOT OF LAVA!” Bobby screamed at the top of his lungs. Simon looked around cautiously, noticing there wasn’t a creature in sight. It made sense. What creature would willingly live inside this lava lair?

Simon’s eyes darted to the lake of lava, and his eyes widened as he saw something in the distance. There was another large, stable rock jutted out of the lava that had an object sparkly and shiny on it. It seemed to be resonating a blue tone. Simon pointed at it.

“That must be the artifact! But how are we going to get over there?! There’s so much space between us and that rock!”

Bobby walked over to the edge, crouched down, and then whacked his hammer on the edge.

BANG BANG BANG!

Simon let out a shrill scream, and he dropped his axe onto the ground.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

Bobby slammed his hammer onto the ground one last time, and in an instant a thatch foundation began to build itself onto the rock. Bobby stepped back, and in just a few seconds, the foundation was finished. Bobby gingerly stepped onto it, crouched down again, and gave it a few whacks. Seconds later a ceiling hung off the foundation, dangerously close to the lava.

“Bobby, are you SURE this is a good idea?”

“Yes! I have high hopes! If we build all the way over there, grab the artifact, and come back fast enough this thing won’t topple or burn down before we do! Hand me some of that thatch and wood will ya’?”

Simon began to feed Bobby the resources he needed, and in just a few minutes, they had managed to build a shanty, however stable bridge almost all the way to the artifact. Bobby held his hand out again, but as Simon ruffled in his bag, his heart dropped.

“Bobby, we don't have any more resources!”

Bobby looked back at Simon with his jaw to the floor and his eyeballs popped out.

“What?!”

Simon shrugged.

“We had to make room for the repellant! I’m sorry man!”

“Then we should go back and chop a few more trees down!”

RUMBLE!

The lava below them began to bubble. There wasn’t much time left. Simon began to sweat even harder, his palms getting clammy and his heart beating fast. Bobby began to panic, ruffling his hair with his hands.

“What do we do, what do we do?!”

Simon looked at the lava lake. His eyes widened as he saw that it was rising. Just a centimeter every second, but it was definitely rising. Simon began to walk back to the entrance of the cave. Bobby looked at him in shock.

“What are you doing Simon?! We have to figure something out- SIMON WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

Simon had turned around and began to run toward the end of the bridge with all of his might. He squinted his eyes and looked at the artifact with fervor. He gave a ghastly grin to Bobby as he dashed past him and jumped off the edge and onto the platform with a BAM!

Simon reached his hand out and touched the artifact. It disintegrated into dust and traveled into his implant. Simon began to laugh to himself as he inspected his glowing implant with wonder.

“We got it Bobby! We got it-”

WOOSH!

“SIMON WE GOTTA GO NOW THERE’S A WAVE OF LAVA COMING!”

Simon looked at the lava in horror, and his legs grew in size. He looked down in wonder to see his legs looked a lot longer now. With no time to waste, he stepped over the lava and back onto the bridge. Bobby hopped onto Simon’s shoulders, piggyback riding him. Simon began to make a dash for the entrance, his long legs carrying him as fast as he could. As he reached the entrance, he turned to Stream and whistled at it. Stream got the memo. It rushed out of the entrance, and as the lava began to wash onto the rock, they could hear the bridge crash into the lake, causing a spurt of lava to rise and spout at them.

BOOM!

Simon and Bobby let out a howl of terror, and he leapt through the entrance with all of his strength, tumbling onto the grass and getting dirt all over their bodies and clothes.

The two just lay on the grass for a while, panting and catching their breath. Bobby looked back at the cave, a flash of orange light from the lava casting into his eyes, before it went away. He let out a sigh of relief. Simon’s legs returned to normal size.

“That was… WAY too close for comfort,” Simon said. He raised his hand drowsily, and as he squinted at it, his middle finger grew three times longer! His eyes widened, and he pointed it at the cave, flipping it off.

“Size manipulation? That’s cool! There’s no way those scouts or that June lady can get us now…” Bobby gasped in wonder and began to laugh. Simon grinned, looking back at Bobby slyly.

“You’re right. Now we just have to hope that the others get the job done and cure Skyler once and for all!”

The two lay there in the grass, laughing to themselves, the thought of their expedition still fresh on their minds.

“Maybe we can be fighters and adventurers too,” Bobby thought as his eyes sparkled with delight, “Just maybe.”

“We’ll be just as strong as them.”