Golden Treasure: Be The Dragon Quest

After some consideration, you decide to leave the pockets of Treasure deep underground for later. It's not like you're going to forget about them - you are Ruby Clan, and you feel the insights you have gained about the stone below you in your very bones. You doubt you could forget the dream if you tried. Treasure to be gained later is no less valuable than Treasure gotten now, and patience has served you well in life so far. You can be patient some more, holding the knowledge that eventually you will dig into Earth and claim the hidden treasures in your mind.

Meanwhile, there is a more accessible mystery under the Earth to be explored. The mysterious echoing shinestone caves, made by Tailless, deep below the surface... You had better explore them now, before you grow too much bigger. Already, you are a good bit longer than when you were hatched, outweighing the Longears you habitually hunt by a greater and greater factor. You've had to expand your den a few times, lest it become too small to curl up and sleep in!

You expect you may end up staying in the Shinestone Caves deep below for a while. You have no idea how far they extend or how deep they go, and while you are unlikely to get lost with your keen senses and excellent sense of direction, something makes you suspect there will be few to no creatures living down there that you could eat. It would be good planning to eat your fill before heading into the depths - even assuming you have to exert yourself or use your fire, you think you can last some ten to twenty days in the span between full to bursting and the point where you begin to suffer from hunger, and perhaps ten more after that until hunger becomes truly dangerous.

Making your way to the deep cave where the grate blocks you will take most of a day, as will returning to the surface, leaving eighteen to explore the place and return to the entrance with a comfortable margin of safety. Having to spend two days going there-and-back, plus however long your travel would take in the strange caves themselves, would be a substantial delay, so you want to avoid it if you can. You think about bringing a few kills with you into the place, but that would be annoyingly difficult and only buy you another day at most.

The Longears are an easy and fast meal, but you require more and more flesh to sustain yourself lately since you've grown so much. Gone are the days when a single Treetail would sate you for a day or two. You would need to eat very many Longears to fully prepare for going a while without food. So many that you worry hunting enough of them to grow fat and replete might dangerously deplete the local population, possibly leaving you with less food in the future, maybe even causing knock-on effects to other plants and creatures. You can see it in your mind - it doesn't seem to be too implausible: Other hunters like the Slideclaws would either hunt the population down even more and drive them from the grasslands entirely, or starve and move away, allowing the Longears to greatly multiply in the long term and ruin their food, the bountiful grass.

You want to fill your belly before descending, but at what cost? You've hunted a few other things, but Longears have been the most common. Those and other smallish prey like the Treetails, Darksweet, and Stripetail have been your most common meals by far since they are common and easy to find, and not very difficult to kill. Eating your fill of them sufficiently to gird yourself for your explorations would be a significant blow to the local populations.

You could instead attack a medium-sized and very mean animal you have become aware of called 'Furyclaw', but... The thing is fierce and kind of scary. You might get hurt, as shameful as it is to admit. Your Fire is weak and you're honestly not as good at fighting as you could be. It turns out that you simply do not have the experience or skill to gain a lot of food quickly without causing other problems. When your choices open some options, they close others.



I want to try bringing back the hunger/energy mechanic, at least for your cave exploration and possibly other times where you are in a situation that makes hunting difficult. You're probably going to spend a while down there. While in the Shinestone Caves, each day will cost you one energy, and strenuous activities like digging, carrying something heavy, climbing, or using your fire breath will cost extra energy. You might be able to get more energy if you find something to eat, but this is far from guaranteed. You will want to head for the exit before it runs out, and just coming back later will not necessarily be an option.



[] Eat a lot of small prey, it's worth the risks to have more leeway. Descend with 18 Energy. Some risk of damaging the ecosystem.
[] Eat as much as you think won't imbalance things very much. Descend with 14 Energy. Slight risk of damaging the ecosystem.
[] Eat only as much as has no risk of imbalance. Descend with 10 Energy. No risks except exploration being cut short and having to come back later.
[] Hunt a big Furyclaw to avoid depleting small prey. Descend with 18 Energy, no risk of damaging the ecosystem, significant risk of injury.