Your first Dino encounter

You do your best to keep the town in view so you don't waste time, but that isn't always possible. The rolling hills you're walking through have some pretty deep areas where you can lose sight of it. However when you pop back up on the top of another hill it is easy to confirm your direction. Additionally you feel like you just know what direction to walk and you don't feel like you're going to get lost even if you couldn't see the town. It's a weirdly intuitive feeling. In fact there were a lot of weirdly intuitive things you were noticing.

Like you knew what animals were making the foot prints you'd see occasionally, as well as roughly how long ago they made the print. Fortunately everything so far has been little Dinos or animals. You haven't seen any signs of big dinosaurs, but if the cutscene you saw before was accurate they were around though. On one of the hill tops you spot in the valley below a strand of trees. Something tingles on the back of your neck so you crouch down and stare at the trees for a bit.

You don't see anything at first, but then you see a little movement. A tail sticks out of the tree strand and snakes back in. You couldn't see what it belonged to however. It didn't look giant, but it was definitely bigger than anything you'd seen so far. You kind of wanted to tame it, but you were worried about the whole dying thing. You sat watching for a sign of it while pondering what to do. Eventually you were going to have to do this so why not now. You had set yourself up to tame anything after all. You stood up and started to approach while thinking about what it would take to tame it.

In the game you'd approach it and click on the tame button. It'd either let you tame it or it'd reject it and you'd have a fight on your hands depending on the dino. Here you could almost sense the magic when you thought about taming. Like it was just there waiting for you to access it. You'd have to try out your offensive spells later you determined, as you could feel those waiting for you as well when you thought of them specifically.

You approached the trees and kept looking for a sign of the creature. Soon you were maybe 100 feet from the trees and still not seeing anything. Suddenly out of the shadows it stepped forward.

"Shit" you said out loud. It stepped into the sun and you realized it was a raptor. This was a Dino World raptor though and although they looked like the kind you saw in a movie, they were much bigger. Big enough to ride if you had the right equipment. It started to approach you in a semi-crouched manner. It was going to attack once it got close enough. You focused on the magic you'd felt before and focused on taming magic. You felt a surge of energy leave you and surround the raptor. It paused and you could sense almost what it was feeling. It was hungry and scared. You could sense its desire to be in a pack, and that it was alone.

You intuitively focus on it's desire for a pack and the magic fills you again. The magic rushed out of you and you could feel it move towards the raptor. You felt the conflict of the raptor as the magic overtook it. It wanted a pack, but didn't know if it could trust you to provide that. Finally you felt acceptance and then the magic was gone. You took a step back to absorb what just happened. You didn't feel fatigued, but you did feel like some of you was drained. You watched as the raptor adopted a much less threatening pose and moved toward you.

It took all your will power to not run away as it got closer, but you could feel the raptor was happy. It stopped in front of you and then leaned down and nuzzled into your chest. Having a big 10 foot tall raptor nuzzle into you like a cat was disconcerting. You slowly brought your hand up and gave it a pet on the head. You could feel the tough skin on its head slightly give a little under your fingers. It was like petting a smooth soft rubber almost.

The raptor let out little warbles while you pet it and eventually stood back up. In the game you'd have commands pop up that you could issue. Go here, defend me, attack that, let me ride you, and so on. You weren't sure how to do it here though. A message screen popped in front of your face, which was also disconcerting.

On it was written "Congratulations on your first successful Dino tame. Here is a gift to care for your new friend". Under it was the picture of a gift box. You touched the box and the screen disappeared. You weren't sure what just happened though, and you pulled off your backpack and looked in your inventory to see if it went directly in there like it would in the game. It looked like your assumption was correct. In it was a stack of meat and a note. You touched the note, and a message appeared before you.

"Here is some food for your tamed dino. To issue commands to the dino simply state what you want to have it do to start with. It will understand you better than you think. Later as your attunement to the dino grows he will intuitively start to know what you need him to do. To name your dino simply state "Your name is 'insert name here'. Good luck!"

After you finish reading the note fazes out of existence. You touch the dino food, and a large hunk of meat appears in your hands catching you by surprise. It's about the size of a quarter of a cow and has bones and everything in it. The raptor bobs up and down excitedly and issues out what you can only call "Raptor Barks".

"Here you go big guy, chow down" you say out loud and put the meat on the ground. The raptor gives you another nuzzle before ripping into the meat. You can hear bones crunching as it tears into it. A feeling of satisfaction washes over the raptor.

"So what am I going to call you I wonder" you say out loud. The raptor gives you its attention as you wonder what to call it. "The note said you were a male raptor" you state earning a single bark from the raptor. You don't want to do something obvious like "Talon", so you look the raptor over and examine it. It's base color appears to be dark grey, while it has almost stripes of red along its sides. Its eyes are slit like that of a cats eyes, but you do notice across the ridge of its nose is a scar.

"Hmmm...Scar...that seems a little too on the nose yah" you ask the raptor. It gives you a look and then gives a series of dry heaves as if it's about to vomit.

"Ok ok, I get it" you defensively hold up your hands with a chuckle. Suddenly it pops into your head. His colored stripes are more like copper than red as you examine them more.

"Your name is...Copper". The raptor pauses its fake vomit actions and tilts its head to regard you. It stands up fully and issues some loud barks and then comes back down to nuzzle into your cheek, and you give its chin some scritches. After a few more nuzzles it remembers the food and goes back to finishing off its meal. After some time passes as you watch Copper eat his meal you take a drink of water and deposit the waterskin back in your bag, and put it back on your back. Soon Copper is finished with his meal so you tell him its time to go, and you and your new buddy start to walk through the tree strand on your way to the town.

It is later in the day by the time you reach the town. You came across a road helping you pick up your pace a little, and going in and out you could see people and their dinosaurs. It was amazing seeing some of the larger dinosaurs like a triceratops hauling a cart and rider into town ahead of you. The town itself is unwalled, but has a decent amount of buildings. In the game you remember there were towns that looked primitive, and others that looked like Tokyo, but you weren't sure if any cities had much for technology at the moment. This was definitely a primitive one. As you got to the edge of town you noted a sign so you stopped to read it. It was a list of rules. "All weapons are to be stored. No Killing. No ****. No Stealing. Violators will be punished as appropriate." Simple enough you thought and you packed away your weapons. It was time to explore the town.