Dododex

ARK: Survival Evolved & Ascended Companion

Journey Through All Creatures

Chapter 19: The Swamp Cave

Note: Story starts in Achatina, The Island ABC order for Section I and has a Prologue. Last chapter in Pachyrhinosaurus.

Note about Chapter 20 and 21: The next two chapters will be part of a two-parter. Chapter 20 will be in Purlovia. It will be Part 1 of the two parter. Chapter 21 is the second part and will be in Queztal. We got a lot of creatures in Chapter 22, so it will be a very long chapter. Chapters 20 and 21 will both be on the Strong Cave.

Chapters to the end of Section I: 6

Cave Chapters Part 3/5

After almost an hour of flying, Sodden’s pteranodon approached the mossy cliffs where the cave entrance sat. The pteranodon touched down just outside of the entrance, then Sodden put him in a cryopod. Sodden put on a gas mask and took out the Megatheriums. He walked into the cave and down the slope that led to the tunnel. He threw out one of the megatheriums and got on it. Then he walked through the tunnels, towards a small chamber. A large swarm of bugs flew at them, but the megatherium easily swatted and crashed the swarm. They walked through the tunnels, approaching the first large chamber, then Sodden threw out a Megatherium in front of the one he was riding, and whistled for it to attack the creatures in the large chamber. Then Sodden noticed a swarm of insects coming from behind, and turned around his Megatherium to attack them. It was decimating the insects, when suddenly, a scorpion tried to push it into the chamber. Sodden’s Megatherium easily destroyed the scorpion, but then another one came from behind. It raised its tail to hit Sodden’s back, but missed when the Megatherium turned. The insects started damaging Sodden’s armor and he took out his shotgun to shoot down the insects, while the Megatherium took care of the swarm. Then some spiders came along, and Sodden threw out the last Megatherium to take care of the spiders. The swarm was dead, but Sodden’s gas mask was half damaged and the Megatherium in the large chamber was getting bloodied and bruised. He looked at the gas mask and noticed he forgot to get the ascendant one from Red, so he was stuck with the primitive one. He sighed and put one of the Megatheriums in a cryopod, then threw it out again in the large chamber. It started attacking the coming bugs, spiders, arthros, and scorpions. Sodden sat on his Megatherium, waiting for the chamber to become safe enough to go in.

On Far’s Peak, inside the base of C Tribe, Terad sat in his chair, at the table close to the front entrance. He held a cryopod in his hand. He was watching a screen, one that was linked to the cameras in each cave. He could see Sodden and the Megatherium in the cave. Then someone ran down the stairs from behind. “Uh… sir.” The person said. “Don’t call me sir.” Terad said. “We found one.” The person said. “Found what?” Terad said. “A Titanosaur. Near the Redwoods.” The person said. No response. Terad slowly got up and turned to the person. “What? We gotta get it. We’ve been looking for weeks. Where’s the Quetzal and cannons?” Terad growled. “Uh… we… don’t have a Quetzal.” He said. “WHAT!? The others were supposed to be looking for one! They’ve been looking all week! They should’ve found one by now!” Terad screamed. “Yeah… we should’ve. You see… Nameless ran into us a few days ago when we found a Quetzal. It was a 125. And Nameless had to steal our Quetzal and leave us with nothing. We have not found a good Quetzal since.” The person said. “WHAT!!!!!! I know what’s going on. They know about the Titan. When will they be ready?” Terad asked. The person talking to him did not say anything. “When will they be ready?!” Terad sneered. “Uh… I heard they’re running the Strong cave tomorrow to find a good saddle for the Quetzal. They’re planning the Titan tame next week.” The person said. “What. Did. You. Just. Say.” Terad growled in a deep voice. He then took out a sword and smashed a chair. “We don’t even have a Quetzal yet!!! We cannot let them tame that thing. Either we tame it… or it dies!” Terad said. The word “dies” seemed to echo in the person’s ear. “We can’t fight a Titan when Nameless wants to tame that same Titan. Are you insane? Our Gigas are really good, but so are their Gigas. We could be facing a literal WAR if we tried to fight that thing around Nameless!” The person said. Terad grabbed him by his shirt and growled in his ear, “We will tame it, or we will kill it. I don’t care if we have a war.” Terad then dropped him and stormed upstairs.

In the swamp cave, the two Megatheriums inside the chamber were killing the last of the arthros and bugs. When the last arthro died, Sodden put the Megatherium he was sitting on in a cryopod and walked into the chamber. The two Megatheriums were weighed down with stacks upon stacks of chitin. Sodden had like 380 weight, though, so he could carry a ton of chitin. “I’d definitely need some of that chitin.” He said. He took out around 20 stacks of chitin and then took out a crossbow with a grappling hook on it. He aimed for the small shortcut on the ceiling that led to the artifact, and shot a grapple at the roof. He rappled up and jumped to the ledge. Then he crawled to the artifact container, stood up, opened the jar and took out the Artifact of the Immune. “Nine caves done. One to go.” Sodden whispered. He jumped back down and put his Megatheriums back in the cryopods. He walked into the tunnel leading to the exit, threw out a Megatherium, and used it to clear out the creatures blocking the way out. He cleared out the spiders and scorpions, got to the cave entrance and put his Megatherium in the cryopod. He walked out of the cave and threw his pteranodon out. The sun was about to set, so Sodden set out for Nudon.

On the way back, he set his pteranodon down for stamina regain, and Sodden ran to a phiomia nearby, took out his shotgun, and shot it down. He then put down a pelagnoris flying above him, and when he walked to the water, he shot down some pirhanas that were coming towards him. He then shot down a pteranodon flying above him. He then walked back to his pteranodon and took off. After he arrived to Nudon, and the sun began to dip below the horizon, the light fading from the Island, Sodden put his pteranodon in a cryopod and walked into the castle. Red came fron downstairs and saw him. “Oh, hey, dude. You’re back. You got it. Okay. So… we have something to do. We gotta make a plan for tomorrow’s cave, aka, the Strong Cave. That cave is insanely difficult. Not only is there crazy powerful creatures, it’s also insanely cold down there. Uh… I’m not sure what your stats are now… maybe they’d help?” Red said as he walked to Sodden. “Uh… yeah. I got 210 HP, 220 oxygen, 280 stamina, 380 weight, and just one point in fortitude. Yeah… I wasn’t very good at organizing my levels.” Sodden said. “Okay. Not a big deal. We have some tonics that will reset your stats. You can fix them after that.” Red said. He pointed to the right, behind the stairs to the second floor, where the cooking room was. “That’s our cooking room right there.” Red said. He walked there, and Sodden followed. When they entered the room, they walked to the storage boxes at the other end and Red opened one of them, which was labeled, “Level Resets” “This thing has mindwipe tonics, which will reset all your levels and engrams, but you’ll keep all your XP, so you can put back your levels. We use it to fix stats we’re not satisfied with, or to boost crafting speed so that we can save ourselves the hours it took to craft supplies. Literally. The shotgun cost 21,000 polymer to upgrade. We spent 13 hours with boosted crafting speed crafting all that stuff. Okay, anyway, let’s get your stats fixed.” Red said. He took out a bowl with a purple liquid in it. “Just drink it and your stats will reset within seconds. Just, be cautious. It can sometimes knock out people.” Red said. Sodden nodded and took the bowl, then drank it all. Within 10 seconds, a whoosh sound went off and Sodden’s 70 levels were immediately reset. “The ideal layout is 230 HP, 250 oxygen, 350 weight, and 28 fortitude. I like using that setup for caves and stuff. And crafting speed can stay base. You don’t need that for now. We can worry about that when we get to the saddles.” Red said. “Okay… the saddles. We probably need more Rexes.” Sodden said. “You’re not wrong. We also are getting Theris. All we need is the Artifact of the Strong and we’ll be set.” Red said. Sodden gasped. “Wait… how will we do that?” He said. “You’re going to bring my Yuty and two Rexes, and two Theris. The Theris are backup. The Rexes are male and female, so they’ll be mate boosted. The Yuty will strengthen the Rexes and reveal Purlovia. All you have to do is watch your back and stay alert, and bring your fur armor, and you’ll be fine. On fur armor, we’ve gotten leggings with 280 durability and 190 cold resist. That should protect you. But if the chestpiece breaks, it’s probably going to expose you to the cold, and you’re going to start taking damage. At least .3 per second according to my calculations. So I think you should bring standing torches. You’ll have a stack of angler gel and three standing torches to protect you. Just don’t let them get destroyed. We leave at 9 tomorrow morning, so get your food and water tomorrow and we’re going to be ready.” Red said. “Okay.” Sodden said. He was about to leave when Red stopped him. “Hold on. One last thing. Don’t, under any circumstances, let a Yeti hit you without the chestpiece on. One of our great friends learned that the hard way.” Red said. “What? What happened?” Sodden asked. “I don’t want to say. Just don’t let it happen.” Red said. Sodden nodded then left the room. Rod stopped him as he was about to leave, and Sodden gave him the megatheriums. Rod held out a thumbs up, and Sodden nodded. He walked out of the base, threw out his pteranodon, and got on and took off. One hour passed. The message, “Sodden (Level 71) killed a Plesiosaur!” showed up. Another hour passed. Sodden arrived back, ate some cooked meat from his bag, put his pteranodon in a cryopod, then walked into the castle.

Prepare for the Strong Showdown…

-RelatingHen8906