[Cafe] 108 – Interlude

With the second round of the tournament over, the Cafe was abuzz with chatter, people discussing the topics of the Participants, Abberation, Scorched Earth, the Island, the ARKs in general, and more began to have questions. What were they? Most of the games had some kind of story that was shown to the players, but the ARKs seemingly had none, or that was the case until some of the people who were roaming the Island began to piece together the Survivor Notes scattered across the Island, detailing the fate of the people who once called the Island home. 

People like Helena Walker, Gaius Marcellus Nerva, Sir Edmond Rockwell, and Mei-Yin Li.

These people left notes detailing their journeys across the Island. Many of these notes were hidden or in notable landmarks and seemed to be contained within unique vessels to the person. 

As people pieced together the stories of these survivors who came before, they learned more about the Island and the strange metallic drops that lit the sky, containing valuable loot and items, and the strange metallic structures, artifacts, and Obelisks that littered the Island.

The story they first pieced together was Helena's, a modern biologist who one day awoke upon the shores of the Island and began to spend seasons studying the local fauna and flora, noting the strangeness of the ecosystem that should not be. Far too many predators, too few herbivores, and seemingly always dense populations of dinosaurs roamed the Island despite the many hunted every day, every week, and every month that should have long stripped the Island of the Fauna.

The strange nature of the local Fauna and their seemingly impossible growth and nature allowing them to be birthed and mature in a matter of days or weeks instead of months and years and be trained far more effortlessly than even man's best friend after millenniums of Mankind breeding and training them to be the perfect companions.

Her notes go over her experiences of the Island and her interactions with the other notable figures of the Island, but in their search, the players were still missing many critical pieces of her story, so they continued searching for them, delving into caves, exploring the jungles, and diving into the ocean. However, in their search, they found a great many Dossiers of the Island's local Fauna.

The second series of notes they found was to one Gaius Marcellus Nerva, a man who seemed to have been a Centurion, a Roman soldier of old. His notes were old scrolls written entirely in Latin. Luckily for the players, the implants seemed to have come with a translator who translated his scrolls with but a glance.

His story tells of a man who served as a soldier, one who wanted to build a new Legion on the Island, one he succeeded in building, especially as he personally trained his charges to be true Legionaries, and with the use of guns, mounts, and the recipes created by Sir Edmond Rockwell, they became a prominent force on the Island as they achieved victory after victory. It was clear through his notes that Gauis was a prideful man, one who believed in the superiority of man and that a weapon was only as good as the hands that wielded it. He was a strategist and a leader, and his Legion raided, pillaged, and conquered.

Sir Edmond Rockwell, on the other hand, was a 19th-century chemist who liked to think of himself as a brilliant man. In his notes and through what notes they found documenting his discussions with Helena, it was clear that he felt he was superior and that Helena was not a true scientist, using her for his own means.

He experimented heavily with the local flora and fauna, making tinctures, medicines, and elixirs that almost seemed magical with how effective they were. It was his role as an intellectual that led him to grow power on the Island, and it was evident through his notes that he was arrogant, had a god complex, and was a colossal asshole, belittling everyone he met.

Finally, there was Mei-Yin Li. Born before the Yellow Turban Rebellion, she was trained in secret by her father to protect her village from harm, only to die fighting for her village. She awoke like the others one day on the beach, and from there, it was clear she was a natural-born survivor and the future Beast Queen. 

Of all the people on the Island, not many used as many Beasts as her, and with time, her horde grew and grew. She became a fierce mercenary, hoping to find a way home, and went to great lengths to protect the innocent and weak, proving to be quite the honorable character, even more so than all the others.

One of the notes the players found revealed that Mei-Yin's relationship with Gaius was terrible. She swore revenge against Gaius and his new Legion for the death of a woman named Wuzhui. 

The story fascinated many, so the craze in searching for the notes increased twofold in minutes, and the Official servers were quickly filled by people who began to roam the Island in search of more notes. 

...

Meanwhile, in one corner of the Cafe, Nick Fury and his three agents came up with a game plan. With all three of his Agents participating in the final round together, it was clear that they'd have an advantage in numbers against all the other participants, or so they thought, as across the Cafe, alliances, teams, and more were being built. With the unique terrain and dangers of Abberation, the people who were already diving into the map found that it would be more complicated than usual in the low light conditions of the underground ARK. Ambush predators were more of a problem than usual; the significant number of predators would make it even harder.

Some began to tame the Abberation-unique dinosaurs and creatures, finding that some would be excellent tames or living siege weapons, such as the Karkinos and Raveger. 

A Karkino was a massive crab that took a literal cannon to knock out and tame, while Ravergers were Hyena-like creatures that traveled in packs of 1 to 3 that could cause enormous bleeding to anything they attacked.

Others began experimenting with the glider attachment, allowing them to glide through Abberation, combining that with the parachute and climbing pick, giving a survivor tremendous adaptability and movement options.

Something that was required given the lack of Pteradons and other flyable mounts. The only mount that was close to being able to fly was the Rock Drake, which, much like the Wyverns, could only be found in a specific gulch and had to be raised from an egg to maturity. With the previous round and the man who had raised a Wyvern, many wanted to see if it would be viable to do the same strategy with the Rock Drake instead.

Rock Drakes, upon full maturity, rivaled the size of a large truck, and with their ability to climb any surface, turn invisible, and launch from a surface and into a glide, they were like feathered missiles in the subterranean environment.

Though one player had a different idea. Why settle with a bird when you could have a King?