Setting
Dracos Valley
Dracos valley, a large expanse of land home to a diversity of beasts both large and small.
Minimap
northwest |
north |
northeast |
west |
You are here. |
east |
southwest |
south |
southeast |
Dracos Valley is a part of 
Xamoyos.
1 Places in Dracos Valley:
13 Characters Here
Keith nexus [1,597] I like fighting
Milo Redcross [1,516] Milo is a lightning mage empowered by the spirits of storm to be tremendously powerful
Kawli [1,059] A scantily-clad goblin who hangs around taverns looking for a mate.
Vampire cutie.lois [743]
Kassandra Tierdath [687] A priestess, whom is lost. She wield's a gunblade and wears clothing fashioned out of elder dragon scale. Her weapons and boots are made of dragon claws and teeth. She is fierce and prepared.
Hopi [683] A tribal man native to Xamoyos, simple in nature but still quite wise.
Abasi [216] A menacing black feral kitsune, with nine tails and a body extending about 20 meters from nose to rump.
Michael Lewis [204] A 14 year old in a world he knows nothing about, Michael just wants to survive.
0perative [195] The one nobody knows
Doctor Danielle Conway [178] A biologist with a minor in anthropology.
Start Character Here »
At a lower altitude, there was a dull boom that stretched across the expanse of Dracos valley when the entry-vehicle hit its final altitude marker and deployed a pair of retro-rockets to slow the descent. A streak of fire raced across the sky, until finally it disappeared below the horizon and came to touch down on a beach of Xamoyos’ Dracos valley with a thunder of exhaust. By the time it had landed, the entry vehicle had displaced a halo of dirt and rock nearly forty meters in diameter as the bus-sized entry vehicle landed.
Even with the deceleration, it still upturned sand and rock, churned dead wood in the landing zone into splinters and likely sent any nearby wildlife scattering from the sheer noise and commotion of landing. The entry vehicle sat quietly, slightly canted to one side as a landing strut found itself buried deep within the sand of the beach.
Next, there was a loud, rumbling hiss and pop as the burned shell of the entry vehicle was blown free, sending the large six-ton ‘doors’ of the entry-vehicle thudding onto the beach. As the shell broke free, the light was then cast down onto a platform where a large, alien vehicle sat nestled. This vehicle was the Primary Landing Probe-1 known affectionately as Puddles, a 3-ton, autonomous probe that had been dispatched to the beaches of Xamoyos. With a grumble, batteries began to whir and the large wheels slowly brought it off the platform and onto the soft sand.
With that, a radio antenna then sprouted out from the strange vehicle’s hull, stretching up into the sky as it sent its first successful message back to the Erikoure from the beach. Next, soft speakers seemed to crackle to life, before a tinny, short number began to play from them as the probe itself seemed to celebrate arriving on the strange planet.
The dramatic crash landing of the entry craft had indeed caused all of the animals in the immediate vicinity to head for the hills. From the tiny theropods no bigger than a dog to the large turtles up to your torso in height.
Once calm was eventually restored once the probe had made its grand entrance life began to move back into place. The first of which and the most curious was what appeared to be a relative to the modern sea lion. It waddled its blubbery body across the sand slowly at first toward the probe, its gentle nature present in its innocent looking face.
Though the sea lion was a carnivore it preffered the taste of fish so the probe was in no danger. If anything, it was in close proximity to being rubbed up against. The sea lion was very friendly, a strange first encounter for such a dangerous world.
On the underside of the large probe, a similar boom extended to take the first, of many, soil samples. Before long though, as Puddles had hoped, he would have visitors. Mounted on the front of the probe was a series of cameras and remote scanners, viewing the world in everything from infrared to visible light and even x-ray. As the large sea lion approached, the probe stopped in its tracks.
As if to test the waters, Puddles took a moment to study the organism, comparing and cataloguing it along with what could easily be thousands, millions even, of similar species that his illusive handlers might have encountered throughout the cosmos.
Then it played a little chirp, perhaps similar in sound that this unknown species might recognize as another - albeit strange looking - pinniped.
The sea lion looked at the strange probe, tilting its head back and forth at it. After a minute or two of inspecting the pinniped concluded the probe was not a threat and made a cute barking sound at it.
The probes chirping was met with mild confusion and yet more barks. It would seem the probe was unsuccesful at communicating with it. The peace was nice on the beach, but nowhere is safe on Xamoyos, at least not for long.
Suddenly bursting from the growth near the beaches border was a medium sized theropod! This creature was known as Xamatocristus. It was a surviving member of the ceratosaurs as can be seen by its prominent nose horns. It was at least 20 feet long and easily half a ton.
The predator had come for the sea lion. The pinniped ran as fast as its flippers could carry it, panicked barking coming from it but it was of no use. The predator sped after it, totally disregarding the probe. Its powerful jaws enveloped the rear flippers of the seal and dragged it back away from the safety of the water.
When the predator came sprinting from the bush though, the probe stilled. As it was ignored, a brief pang of terror soon rushed through the onboard AIs processors and machine-mind - though not for itself, but the little pinniped it was having a brief, if difficult conversation with. Cameras zoomed and fixated on the predator, immediately scanning it remotely with a powerful onboard suite in an attempt to decode the scene before him.
Even worse, to the horror of the sea lion perhaps, was its new acquaintance simply doing nothing. With cold, remorseless "eyes" it stood silent and transfixed upon the scene.
There was nothing the probe could do, the sea lion was merely prey. With lightning efficiency the predator dispatched the seal, its narrow jaws clamped around its throat.
All the sea lion could do was let out terrified and choked gasps and muffled barks. Its blood soon leaked onto the sand, staining it crimson. The Xamatocristus, now with its prize, dug its snout into its blubbery hide to get at the nutritious meat. It would only get a few mouthfuls before being interrupted itself by yet another creature.
What could only be described as a hellish bellow came from nearby, this sound originating from the top dogs of the beach; The beach lord. It was a quadrepedal reptile with a face like a bulldogs and a mouth full of razor sharp teeth. It was just as long as the theropod but weighed 3 tons heavier. It had come for the carcass of the sea lion.
The Xamatocristus snarled and screeched in retaliation in an attempt to intimidate the much bigger Beach lord but it was no use. All it had to do was start to sprint before the theropod went rushing back into the forest it came from.
This bully of the beach grunted and bellowed in its direction before turning its attention to the carcass, its eyes only barely glancing the probe. Its much bigger jaws took bigger chunks of flesh from the seal.
Something else intended to give the probe an insight into that, however. As that call came from up the beach, a camera mast mounted to the roof of the probe turned about to fix on the creature that soon came to assert its dominance over the beach - and by extension it seemed, any kill that took place on them.
With that same, silent fascination, Puddles waited until the beach lord was feeding. Then, cautiously, it seemed to back away by a mere few feet, partly to display the strange new creature on the beach that had no intention of muscling in on the prey: and also have a better view to see how this monster of a predator fed.
The beach lord didn't even seem to chew its food, instead ripping large chunks of meat and bone then swallowing it whole. It attention however slowly shifted from its meal to the probe. Its nostrils flared as it sniffed, not recognizing any scent from this strange newcomer but it was getting way too close to its kill so it gave a warning bellow.
The probe got a lucky break as another guttal bellow came from nearby, another beach lord. This one was smaller looking and lacked all the scary looking spikes this one had, it must've been female. Soon more males joined the beach surrounding the new female, it was mating season evidently.
The males circled around her and all made their roars, trying to compete against each other for whoever had the most powerful sounding one. Eventually the female grunted and shooed off all the competitors except one, our resident male who stole the kill. What came next usually involved the pair mating but instead the two CLASHED, head to head. They tackled each other, all 3 tons of weight slamming into each other.
This wasn't a fight of aggression, the female is fighting the male to test him. If he wins, they pair for life, if he loses she will eat him. The two kept ramming and slamming into each other, avoiding using their powerful jaws. Eventually the female backs down, the male victorious.
It was easy to determine, through size and lack of the facial horns, which was the male and which the female. What made that even easier, was the challenging bellows coming from the female and the other males that soon had gathered. Like Penelope and her suitors, the female was intending to use time to her advantage.
When the beach lords began to class, Puddles was studying intently, cameras shifting and swirling this way and that as the probe remained incredibly still. Its best advantage, whether here on the beach or elsewhere in the heartlands of the strange continent, would be to appear as nothing more than the scenery amongst Xamoyos.
What followed could only be described as the horrid sounds of two heavy creatures mating vigorously. Once that was over and done with the two went off to a different corner of the shore, presumably for the female to make her nest. All of this tussle on the beach as the courtship went on left impressions on the sand, both footprints and other indications of what went on here.
Once the battle was over, calm returned to the beach once more and some of the more timid creatures came out of hiding. From out of the sand came what appeared to be a set of eyes on a spade-like head. This belonged to a beach newt, an amphibian easily 6 feet in length and 900 pounds in weight. Its mouth was lined with serrated teeth adapted for eating slippery sea life and the occasional hard shelled crab.
Once it fully surfaced itself it looked directly at the probe, a look of curiosity in its sideways eyes.
When the newt appeared though, Puddles retracted the large antenna that had sprouted up from its chassis. It spun on its wheels slightly, not too fast to avoid the chance of scaring the creature, to refocus its electrical eyes on the new. As it studied the creature, it noted the teeth and eyes - an amphibian of some sort.
Then, Puddles did something strange. There was a soft, churning whir from somewhere inside the probe’s chassis, while from its side a protruding barrel extended and aimed towards the softly lapping waters of the beach: there was a soft, rumbling shoomp as a spray of artificial chum was shot into the waters of the beach, in the hopes of perhaps luring smaller sea life to observe how this new creature hunted.
It didn't take long before the chum attracted the attention of predators who would hunger for it. It was mostly shallow water fish that made the surface bubble with their activity. This excited the newt enough to divert its attention away from the probe and to go hunt.
Its legs, which were splayed out to its sides, gave it an awkward gait as it ran across the sand. Once it hit the water though, its movements changed dramatically. It swayed its body side to side much like a crocodilian, giving it a fast swimming speed. It snapped up fish as it sped through the water, acting much more like a crocodile than a newt.
Its hunt would be cut short though as a new predator came looking for the commotion, it was a Xamoyan shark. This species of shark was easily 10 feet long and weighed about 600 pounds, most notably about it were the three dorsal fins on its back.
When the shark appeared, the camera boom sprouting from Puddles’ roof focused on this new arrival as well. Deep within the cores of the AIs internal drives, this new realm was as fascinating as it was dangerous - not the Puddles thought itself free of the dangers of the realm. Cautiously it crept just a bit closer to the shore, using its magnification to account for the distance as it observed the aquatic predator stalking for its prey.
With its prize in its jaws, the shark took one powerful bite to kill the newt. It swam away, blood trailing behind it in the water.
Once again, a calm came to the beach now that bellies were full and fighting was done. There was a distinctive sound of a thud on the sand, something fell from the beach palms. It was a fruit and a very strange looking one. This was known as a spineapple, a mango shaped fruit covered in spikes. It was greenish-orange in color and it contained toxic juice comparable to cyanide in potency.
With that done though, the curious probes' high-tuned audio receptors caught a muffled thump, the camera boom then swiveling over just as a prey would trying to figure if a predator was nearby. All it was though appeared to be a piece of fruit dropping to the floor of the beach. Ripe, it was finally freed from the root. With a curious little chirp, Puddles was quickly trundling as fast as his little wheels took him over to the curious piece of drupe, several little manipulating arms soon sprouting from the front of the mechanical chassis.
The shark did not pay any mind to the tracker now embedded in its dorsal fin. Once back in the water the shark would swim further out to sea, swallowing the newt while tearing chunks out of it. Though the shark had finished its meal, it itself would soon be a meal if it were not careful. Following behind it was a large armored fish, its name being Tyrannodunkle.
Luckily for the shark it had speed on its side and managed to outswim the large bulky predator intent on devouring it. After a brief chase the armored fish swam in a different direction, its hunt failed.
Meanwhile, the spineapple that Puddles had found lay still on the beach. Its tough and prickly exterior protecting it from damage. The fruit would soon attract a new animal, something was coming from the dense jungle nearby which was causing the trees to shift as it pushed them aside to get through.
The large cameras were all then turning forward, even the one on the boom sprouting from its back.
From out of the jungle foliage came a large creature, a dinosaur. This was a four legged animal this time and one much heavier than the theropod Xamatocristus. What approached was known as a Xamatostego, a species of stegosaur native to Xamoyos. It was at least 15 feet long and weighed a whopping 3 tons. Curiously,the thagomizer on its tail was not just two pairs of spikes but rather three with a blade point like a spear.
The stegosaur lumbered forward from the wall of plant-life, leaving heavy imprints on the sand as it walked. It had smelled the spineapple and had come to eat it, its specialized beak allowing it to grind up tough vegetation like it. Puddles however would soon be at risk as the stegosaur ignored the metal probe and was very close to crush it under its weight.