Settling in to Smugglers Pass

                When we last left off, we had just finished moving all of our things out to Smugglers Pass from the base of the volcano. We realized that we had forgotten most of our stone at the old base, so we made a quick trip back to collect it on the argents. It was an uneventful flight. I wont bore you with the details. Once we had collected the stone and were on our way back, however, we came across our other pterodon. He was in a battle with a wild argent and I had forgotten just how quick he was. He was absolutely flying circles around it. We rushed in just the same to finish off the argent so we could grab him and take him to our new home. I hope he wont try to escape again. The rest of the flight back was as eventful as the trip there.


                 Once we put the stone away, I did a quick look at the rest of our inventory, to make sure we hadn't forgotten anything else. I noticed that we were a little light on metal. We only had one stack to work with. There was a mountain right near where we lived, so our next trip was going to be checking it out for metal and other rare materials. We'd never ventured over that way before, so our first trip would be just checking the place out and seeing what it was like. We loaded up Dexter and Debra for the short flight up the mountain. It was close enough that we could basically sprint there and back without running out of stamina. About three quarters of the way up the mountain, my wife says to me "oh look, that kind of looks like a big T-Rex over there." I look around and see it, but something didn't look quite right. It was far away, so I went in to get a little closer.

           This must be the "giga" that all of reddit is warning me about getting too close to. I knew he was bigger than a rex, because there was also a rex on that mountain side, and it was small by comparison. He was on our side of the mountain. Still pretty far from our base, but it didn't seem like it'd take much for him to come down to where we were. I worried that we would have to deal with him sooner or later. I'm not very comfortable with the idea of him surprising us someday with an unplanned visit. We've taken down some pretty dangerous predators with our crew, pretty easily too. From what I have heard though, none would compare to this guy. I knew it was going to be a tough fight, but we would make a plan and be ready.


             For now, though, we proceeded the rest of the way up the mountain for our materials. Once we got to the top. We found, not only metal, but also obsidian and crystal waiting for us there. I knew instantly that this would be a place that we would spend a lot of our time. It also became even more important that we find a way to deal with the giga that was hanging out on the slope. The short runs up and down with Dexter and Debra were fine, but I'd love to get some of our heavy carriers up the mountain to help carry a bunch of it down in one trip. As anyone who does grocery shopping will tell you, it's all about getting it done in one trip. We filled up once and began back down the mountain.

             Once we reached our home and unloaded all the metal into the forge, we poked around our little area, getting to know it a little better. It seems like its a great place to find beaver. We saw a couple close to the water again today. I also found a scorpion attacking an ankylo. I shot the scorpion, and thought to myself "that guy is probably pretty close to being knocked out." so I loaded up some tranqs and brought him down. I remember hearing somewhere that those guys were good too have around because of what they collect, but I couldn't remember what it was. It was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't remember. Since he was well on his way to taming anyway I decided it wouldn't really be cheating to aid my memory with a quick peak on the wiki. As it turns out, hes good at picking up a little bit of everything. All the stuff that we now needed for the new fabricator, he seemed to excel at picking up. Flint, metal, crystal, oil, and obsidian. The trick would be getting him up the mountain to where that stuff actually was. This was even more incentive to come up with a plan to take on the giga.... Some day.

           We concluded our time on today with another short and successful trip up the mountain with Dexter and Debra. We weren't on very much today, but I feel like we got to know our new area quite well. It gets a little hot down there during the day, which can be a little bit of a drag, since we both get overheated even while wearing nothing and in the river. Looks like we will need some organic polymer to craft some ghille suits, and to up the fortitude on our characters. I think this is going to be a good spot for us going forward. It has everything we need close by, and we are even closer to the ocean than we were before, by a lot. Trips to the arctic will be much easier from here on out. Maybe some day soon, even trips out to the deep ocean.