I couldn't think of a good dragon-name for Badger. The original canon uses 'Lumberkin' as in 'sort of like a small version of a Lumberer (bear)' but I felt that didn't quite fit. Oh well.
Furyclaw is my first thought.
Badgers survive against far bigger predators by being so madlad that even if you kill one, its nutritionally not worth the healing you'd need.
I couldn't think of a good dragon-name for Badger. The original canon uses 'Lumberkin' as in 'sort of like a small version of a Lumberer (bear)' but I felt that didn't quite fit. Oh well.
I'm glad badger option won. Goddamn our little dragonling needs to buff up. Also thanks to OP for introducing me to this game, spent like 15 hours playing it this past weekend
It's a fun little game isn't it! Beautiful. I think it deserves more publicity.
I vaguely suspect it gets people to instinctively cringe because it sort of sounds... Cringe. Like, "yeah I was a dragon in my past life and my name was Emerald Flame"
Before you make your feast in preparation for going Below, you take time to sing what you have discovered of the Shining Spheres to the beasts of the land. There is no one central place you can go to announce this. You have to wander the land and tell every animal you see to get the word out. The responses you get are interesting...
Many of the smaller animals (at least, once they're assured you aren't trying to hunt them) will listen attentively and take your words to heart. You can see it in their minds: You are a Great Draak-Kin. Even if you are not so great as adults of your kind you have teeth and claws and powerful muscles, not to mention great size (compared to them) and a fiery breath (even if you have not practiced it much). It feels good to get this response - it's right and proper that they regard you as the wise and dangerous thing you are! But you also feel a strange sense of inadequacy, or perhaps responsibility. All these minds looking to you for the answer to this strange event - and you know better than any of them that you are not very wise yet. You've seen less than a single Year on Earth!
A Treetail or Longears is not so clever as you, but they can absorb the message that the Shining Spheres are harmless and can be safely ignored easily enough, even if the subtleties of how and why don't interest them. The larger goodbeasts can comprehend a bit more - they understand that the Spheres are simple and harmless as insects without stingers, searching for something but never finding it. They pose no danger of giving you a too-inflated head, though. From sturdy Tusksnort with their strange noses and dangerous face-weapons, to Slideclaw and Furyclaw who are each small but mighty in their own way, to the mighty Lumberers, the larger beasts clearly regard you as a whelp. They listen to you, but do not offer respect or even necessarily accept what you say as true. You are not a threat, not yet a source of wisdom.
They seem to accept your words, at least, but without the same intimidation or reverence. You are not the master of these lands, their cool reaction seems to tell you. You are not ready. You are not the mighty shadow of destruction that the name 'Draak-Kin' means, nor the labyrinth of cleverness and cunning, nor the beacon of cool patient strength. Not yet.
That's alright. You are a hatchling. If you've learned nothing else in your short time on Earth so far, you've learned patience.
The experience of trying to explain a fairly complex concept to many beasts who all think in different ways has helped you take on a new appreciation for alternate perspectives. Each being has its own story, its own hopes and desires and way of thinking of things. You see an oak tree - interesting and mighty in its way and beautiful, but largely useless except perhaps if you need sticks and leaves for some reason. A Treetail sees a wonderful home, a source of food, and everything it needs to life a good life. You and a Longears you hunt tell very different tales.
In all your learning and observation of the world, you've been focusing on understanding things from your own perspective, neglecting to see things from other perspectives. And now your mind goes back to the mighty Fallen Tree, where you found within yourself a desire to see it grow again... You remember wondering what it would be like to be a tree. Unable to move except perilously slowly, no eyes or ears, but consuming only the very soil and the warmth of Sun...
You may not ever truly know what it's like to be other beings, but as you try to think like a Lumberer or a Treetail or a Stone, you realize that many of your adventures seem different. It makes you think in new ways, remembering them in this new light, trying to decide what beings other than you would think of what happened, what you experienced. This flexibility of mind and empathy for what other beasts think seems subtly beautiful in a way, despite being a soft blow to your pride as a Draak, future mighty hunter and greatest being on Earth. Perhaps learning to see what other beasts see, think what they think, will be helpful in the long term...
+1 Lesson in Water.
You were supposed to get some Water skill here, but I forgot.
With that handled, you settle down to hunt the animal you've been calling Furyclaw, larger-bodied than a rabbit and thus hopefully a good filling meal. It's angry, though, and frankly a little scary. There's a lot of violence contained in a relatively small body, which shows itself whenever it faces a foe in the Dance of Destruction. The Furyclaw is larger than the Stripetails you occasionally manage to catch and snack on. Its face bears stripes, two bold lines of black on an otherwise white expression. A bold statement that helps confuse your eyes a little bit about where it's facing. It has a flat nose, like the Tusksnorts, and it moves around slowly, very sure of itself. Its predatory scent tastes sharp and musky despite its small size.
You fully expect to get hurt a bit during this hunt. You think it will be worth it for the bountiful meal you will earn, and for the experience hunting more dangerous prey to guide your Fire, which has been a bit neglected. So you carefully stalk the Furyclaw in its daily routine, moving nimbly and quietly through the brush, slowly, patiently approaching it from downwind...
After hours of stalking, you finally work your way close enough, not ten feet away and it's still totally unaware of you... So you move to STRIKE! Your Body lashes forward... But alas, you judge the moment poorly - the Furyclaw's head turned at the exact wrong instant and it sees you moving in to strike. In a clash of instincts, Furyclaw raises its claw to meet your face and you flinch back, not wanting to bite down on sharp claws and digging them into your mouth-flesh.
Perhaps you shouldn't have heistated. The Furyclaw hisses in absolute rage at your challenge, at being surprised and ambushed. You are not prepared. What painful fury! What resentful spite! The Furyclaw well deserves its name. It shouts rage between claw and bite, focusing on your terribly vulnerable eyes and ears!
You push through the lashes of pain as best you can and claw right back, and bite at its flesh, trying to rip and tear. It's a brutal, bloody dance. The Furyclaw does not rest for an instant, lashing out again and again, trying to scare you away. Its teeth dig into the flesh behind your ear as your claw scratches at a leg. Its claws scratch your scales like the bark of a tree, mostly not breaking through, as you cough up a tiny flash of fire to burn its flank. It ignores the painful burn and dislodges a scale or two, spilling red Essence on the ground.
You don't remember the whole fight. You remember a single lucid moment from that chaotic, crazed dance of destruction - realizing that you were hurt, but seeing the Furyclaw hurting far worse than you. Then, your determination to stand still and end the foe turned into a red haze of pain and fury. You are a DRAAK! You are DESTRUCTION! And this Furyclaw, while a worthy foe, will not get the better of you! Bite, bite, claw, bite, fire, destroy!
...Its flesh is nothing special, but there is a goodly amount of it, and it still tastes like victory. You just wish it didn't taste like pain, too. You're missing a tooth, by the Onesong! And some scales! And the tip of your tail! Hopefully they'll grow back. You resolve not to bother any further Furyclaws for a while, though being injured so badly by a lowly beast is a shameful experience. Still, the unhesitating strength and unthinking fury you two dealt to each other was something primal and oddly beautiful.
You are Injured and in considerable pain. This will affect your abilities until you recover.
+2 Lessons in Fire. Fire has increased to 2. Learned Fireflash: A sharp burst of flame meant to disorient or temporarily blind foes in combat.
After devouring the bold Furyclaw, which sold its body and destruction so dearly, digging Longears out of their dens until you are stuffed and replete is easy. With so much food in you, you will be able to hunt for something else down below instead - Treasure.
The path into the deeps is not very difficult, and almost comfortingly familiar. You tread over and through a hundred small chambers of every description on your deep path into the place Below, remembering the complex paths with ease. The entrance to the Shinestone Caves comes before you without any further challenges.
The metal gate barring your path into the shinestone caves is rusty and bent, and easily succumbs to your bulk when you hit it with a bit of a running start, squawking out a final groaning protest as it's torn free from its rusting hold on the entrance. The ruined entrance is twisted and even uglier than before now but its most intact bits might make for a decent Shiny Thing or two, and you make a note to carry it with you when you return to the surface if you can.
The shinestone caves are just as intimidating as before, however. Your breath echoes oddly down there, and every step you take makes a loud noise that seems wrong compared to the sound of feet on stone or dirt. Without any source of light you are relying on your other senses to navigate, from feeling the way Air moves around you to hearing the way sound echoes and smelling for any signs of interestingness.
Occasionally there are branches and offshoots from the central path - the only path. Some are large enough to fit you while others are too small to stick more than your head and neck in. They all seem to end in collapses before long, the shinestone caves turning twisted and too small to continue, or to precarious piles of loose Stone that you dare not disturb lest it collapse further. You explore each one of the short offshoots thoroughly at first, but only briefly after the first dozen turn up nothing interesting, merely feeling at a wall or two and sniffing around for any interesting smells. A few of the sections of tunnels too small for you smell like the occasional Wormtail passes through them, though you have to wonder what they could possibly be eating so far from Sun's nourishment.
Time passes. You get used to the oily, metallic smell of the passages, and the way everything echoes. You keep going. This complex must have been truly vast at one point. By the time you come to anything especially interesting, you have been crawling through the shinestone caves for perhaps half a day and found nothing more noteworthy than a single Wormtail, who heard you from a distance and fled into a gap too small for you to follow.
And then you come to an intersection. The winding path of shinestone caves snaking through the Earth ends in a flat wall and splits into two, left and right. It's a sharp, harsh turning point, not the gentle angle of two streams joining, but a wall that seems to stubbornly block your path forward. Engraved into the wall is a strange sigil. Despite the darkness, you can discern its shape by feeling the smooth shinestone with your tongue. A circle with three lines inside it, meeting on the right. It's supposed to mean something, you're sure of it, but you have no idea what.
You roar down each side of the split path and listen carefully to the echoes, but you can discern no significant difference. They don't smell differently, or sound different, or look any different when you emit tiny puffs of fire to see by, the air is still with no breeze to indicate a path, and neither side is warmer or colder than the other. There is absolutely nothing that sets the two paths apart - except the sigil.
Now... it could be a trap of some kind. Maybe we should go left. Or maybe that's just the jrpg in me telling me to examine all the dead ends before triggering a cut scene.
