บท 10: First time fishing
When the sun rose Sobek was already awake. He would had lied if he had said he wasn't very excited: this would have been his first time in the river!
Even if the yolk in the eggs had not yet completely dried, that type of hunting could no longer support him. He needed more preys, and since he had proved that the forest was still off-limits, his best way was to follow his father into the river.
He was confident enough now to dive into the water. Even if there were very large prehistoric crocodiles, most of them would have lost interest in front of a five-meter predator. The only ones who would have seen him as a prey would have been titans like the deinosuchus, but common crocodiles would have aimed for smaller, more viable preys like fishes.
Of course, there were other dangers as well. For example there were snakes: gigantic animals such as the titanoboa and the gigantophis hunted in the water. Or there could be freshwater sharks or other huge fishes...
But he had no choice this time. If he wanted to support his huge body he had to learn to fish. Fishing were a fairly large source of food for him. Therefore despite the risks he had to follow his father n the river.
So when his parent woke up and walked towards the river Sobek followed him immediatly. His father didn' seem bothered: it was normal for cubs once they grew up to follow their parents to learn from them.
When they immersed the water was still hot: due to the temperature range the precious blue liquid retained the heat better than the land. It was better this way: Sobek wouldn't have like to shiver right away. Father and son began to swim on the surface of the water, bringing out the huge sail and part of the tail and muzzle.
As Sobek had imagined, even if the spinosaurs lived in groups, none of them hunted with the others: when they were in the water, the numerous predators scattered in different directions. Such behavior had its own logic: a large number of spinosaurs guaranteed more protection, but would also have driven away the preys. There was also the risk of disputes for food. It was therefore better for each spinosaurus to provide for itself.
His father swam incessantly for at least a kilometer. As he followed it Sobek had the opportunity to control the environment: the landscape was always the same, forests on both sides of the river. However, sometimes an animal came out of the dense and drink. Sobek had seen a large kentrosaurus and two small guanlongs. Then, at some point, they came across a large herd of huge three-horned herbivores.
[Prey identified: Torosaurus latus, ceratopsidae. Experience: 30,000 points]
The torosaurus was a close relative of the triceratops; the two in fact looked a lot alike. Sobek had no interest in approaching those animals: it risked ending very badly for him.
His father continued for a few dozen meters, then stopped in a river inlet whose water was just some meters deep. Sobek was relieved: hardly a large crocodile or a giant snake could hide there.
Below them, then, there was an infinity of food!
[Prey identified: Cephalaspis magnificens, cephalaspidae. Experience: 50 points]
[Prey identified: Hemicyclaspis murchisoni, ateleaspididae. Experience: 100 points]
[Prey identified: Tremataspis rohoni, tremataspididae. Experience: 30 points]
The system sent notifications continuously. However, none of them satisfied Sobek: all the fishes identified were just a few tens of centimeters long. He was aiming for larger preys.
Suddenly there was a splash and his father pulled his head out of the water. Squeezed in his mouth, struggling for its life, there was an eight-meter long sawfish!
[Prey identified: Onchopristis numidus, sclerorhynchidae. Experience: 13,000 points]
That's what he was talking about! Sobek was delighted to see the huge fish. That was what he called a substantial prey! Under his gaze his father dragged it to the shore and left it there, before returning to the water. Shortly thereafter it captured another onchopristis and repeated the operation.
Sobek realized that his father was hoarding the food. Evidently certain fishes could only be found at a certain time of day and therefore he had to get as much of them as possible before he could even eat one.
Sobek was about to imitate him, but noticed a movement in the foliage. His father, still intent on fishing, hadn't noticed. But Sobek was more careful. Under his gaze, a small theropod covered with a faint mantle of short brown feathers emerged from the forest and approached the fish.
[Prey identified: Rugops primus, abelisauridae. Experience: 5,000 points]
"Do you want to steal our fish? Fuck you, asshole!" Sobek exploded emerging from the water and growling at the rugops. The little theropod stepped back on seeing him coming and took up a defensive position.
Sobek wasn't afraid to face him. The rugops was probably just a young adult and it was smaller than him. Furthermore, its bite was nowhere near as strong as that of a large predator. He could handle it quietly.
The rugops was undecided whether to fight or flee, but in the end it decided to take the risk. Perhaps the fact that the larger spinosaurus hadn't noticed it yet was giving it courage. With a roar it stepped forward and scratched the ground trying to appear larger; it reminded Sobek a lot of a big chicken.
Despite for the rugops, Sobek wasn't certain someone to intimidated with threats. With a leap he threw himself at the animal and tried to bite it on the side. The rugops jumped back and tried to bite him too, but Sobek dodged him as well. The two carnivores distanced themselves again, looking at each other, each trying to identify a weak point of the opponent.
In terms of strength and agility they were very similar, but Sobek knew he had an advantage. In addition to the jaws, he could rely on his mighty claws, while the rugops only had the mouth as a weapon. Also, that bite was a bad weapon: the jaws of the rugops were not designed to inflict deep injuries as were those of large predators.
Sobek took the initiative again and attacked the rugops; it dodged him again, but this time Sobek was ready. As soon as the rugops tried to bite him, he spun around and hit it in the face with a paw. The blow was certainly not enough to kill the dinosaur, but the rugops was still bewildered. While it tryed to recover Sobek was already on it and bit it in the throat; with a yank the jugular was ripped off. The rugops staggered and let out a few choked noises, then fell to the ground dead.
Sobek roared in triumph. To hell with fishing: he had found something much better! The rugops could not only provide him with all the food he needed, but it would also have given him new skill points!
However, as he was about to eat the rugops he felt a vibration in the ground. A kind of trembling, as if someone were beating the earth with a mighty hammer.
Sobek backed up to the water in concern. The vibration grew stronger, a sign that whatever it was it was getting closer. Under his frightened gaze, the fronds of the trees parted and two huge carnivorous dinosaurs emerged from the forest. Two massive-headed predators, with short front legs, well-proportioned body and a little light gray plumage on the back with slight hints of red and blue on the head.
[Prey identified: Tyrannosaurus rex, tyrannosauridae. Experience: 100,000 points]
"Tyrannosaurus!? Go, go!" Sobek plunged back into the water and rapidly moved away from the shore. How unfortunate could he be? He was facing the most powerful predator of all time!
In reality, the tyrannosaurus was very different from what was shown in films such as Jurassic Park: it hadn't have bared teeth, it had lips and it had some plumage. However, the stories of its lethality weren't braggart: a single bite from one of those monsters could shatter a car!
Fortunately, the tyrannosaurs didn't seem interested in him and had let him escape. If they had attacked they would have caught him before he could even reach the water. He was safe in the river: even if that dinosaurs knew how to swim very well, they weren't aquatic predators.
Sobek observed them. The two tyrannosaurs were very different each other; probably their were a male and a female. They were both naked in the lower side of the body, exposing the scale skin, but on the back and on the head they had a soft plumage. The female, or the one that Sobek believed was the female, had a barely hinted plumage with a brown color. The male, or the one Sobek believed was the male, had istead brighter colors and its head was covered by red and blue feathers. Sobek believed that it was the male because in bird world it was the males who have bright colors, and birds were a clade of dinosaurs, so tyrannosaurs shouldn't be so different.
Under his gaze the two gigantic predators reached the shore and began to drink greedily. Sobek understood them: since predators were ambush creatures, they couldn't afford to drink whenever they wanted. It was natural for them to stock up on water properly as soon as they had the chance.
However, Sobek realized a problem: he was safe at the moment, but the tyrannosaurs would surely have stolen his prey! Even if they were predators, they did not disdain eating animals killed by others. What fool would have abandoned a carcass of a rugops after being lucky enough to find it?
He looked at his father, who in turn had targeted the tyrannosaurs. It was clear that it had made his same thought. Yet Sobek knew there was little his father could do: even though it had the size advantage, a spinosaurus had no chance against a tyrannosaurus. It was like pitting a wolf against a tiger.
In addition, there were two tyrannosaurs! Sobek believe they were a couple or something like that, and that they helped each other in the hunt. Even though they were at the top of the food chain, hunting alone was still a gamble for them: in two there were a better chance of surviving. Animals like the triceratops could have easily beaten a single t-rex, but not two.
Wait a minute... about triceratops...
A crazy idea came to Sobek. It was completly mad, but he didn't have time to evaluate the risks: the tyrannosaurs wouldn't have kept drinking forever.
Quickly he went up the river and reached the spot where he had seen the pack of torosaurs. They were still there: it hadn't been too long and they hadn't moved too much.
Sobek had calculated that there were no more than fifty meters from that point to the inlet where he and his father were fishing. It was a very short stretch of road. The tyrannosaurs probably knew very well about the presence of torosaurs, but they had avoided them for obvious reasons: attacking a large herd was suicide for them too. Furthermore, the torosaurs were highly territorial: if they found the tyrannosaurs, they wouldn't give up until they killed or chased them away. And this was valid of any predator.
Sobek crept up, then as soon as he was close enough he jumped out of the water and bit the paw of one of the torosaurs. The animal bellowed in pain, but Sobek immediately released its paw and walked away: he certainly had no intention of being kicked.
As he had imagined, the torosaurus was furious and charged. It was not alone: at least five others of its pack joined it. Sobek immediately activated [Swim speed] and swam away keeping as close to the shore as possible so that the torosaurs continued to chase him.
Even with [Swim speed] at level 1/5 he could swim up to a maximum of 12 km/h, while torosaurs could run up to 40 km/h; however they needed time to 'activate the gear' and were continually hampered by water, broken branches, stones and other obstacles. Sobek also had an escape route: if things got bad he would swim to the middle of the river, where they couldn't chase him again.
But he had done his calculations well: by the time the torosaurs reached him he had already arrived at the inlet. The tyrannosaurs immediately lifted their heads from the water as they heard the torosaurs approaching, and in turn the torosaurs slowed their race as they saw the giant predators. Sobek so quickly retreated into deep water: now he just had to watch.
After the initial dismay, the torosaurs had regained their aggressive behavior and had lowered their lethal horns ready to charge. The tyrannosaurs, on the other hand, quickly realized that they couldn't win and ran away: in a short time they disappeared into the forest with their tails between their legs.
Sobek waited for the torosaurs to leave as well. After half an hour the giant herbivores turned around and returned to their pack. When he was sure that they were enough far away, Sobek got out of the water and finally went to eat the carcass of the rugops.
While he ate he reflected. He did not remember ever being so afraid as when he had seen the tyrannosaurs. They really were apex predators, the absolute pinnacle of the food chain. The mere sight of them had made his instincts scream at him to escape.
This time he had been lucky, but if he wanted to survive he would have to avoid them as much as possible in the future. He had memorized the scent of both tyrannosaurs and torosaurs: if he ever smelled them again, he would have run away from the area as quickly as possible.
The rugops gave him 2 skill points and 5,000 experience points. Since he still had 1,180 experience points from his last level up (since the arthropleura alone had covered the 4,000 needed to climb), he had already reached the 6,000 points needed to level up again.
By the time he finished he had become a carnivore 6 meters long and 2.4 meters high, weighing 3 tons and with a top speed of 7 km/h. He also had 4.1 skill points thanks to rugops, so he could soon upgrade a new skill.
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AUTHOR'S THOUGHTS
Hi! I'm the author. Thank you all for supporting my story, I appreciate that. I decide to introduce myself to clarify some paleontology doubts that the most dinosaur fans among you all would surely have while you read my story. So, let's explain something:
1) The current science believe that spinosaurus fished underwater, like a crocodile. That's how Sobek's father hunt. This was theorized thanks to the discovery that spinosaurus had dense bones, useful to submerge itself.
2) Today we don't know if t-rex had feathers. Modern technology has revealed that it shouldn't have that, but we don't know if the specimen we analized are all of the same sex, so it could be a sexual dimorphism. Also, we only know that t-rex hadn't feathers on its belly; we don't know nothing about the back. In my story I decide to make a compromise: females t-rex are almost all naked except for a tiny layer of feathers on their backs, while males have a great plumage to impress potential mates.
3) The roars. Even if in movies dinosaurs always roar like lions, in reality they couldn't do it. What permit lions to roar is the particular shape of the hyoid bone typical only of the mammals. So dinosaurs chirped like birds, as someone has teorized? No. The phonatory organ of birds is the syringe, which evolved only in avian dinosaurs; that means that all non-avian dinosaurs (so practically all the dinosaurs except the birds) didn't have it. So, probably the dinosaurs could only make sounds very similar to the ones of the crocodiles and alligators, or they banged their jaws to emit various sounds. Only some dinosaurs like adrosaurids had bone cavity with they could emit powerful sounds. So, basically, t-rex couldn't roar. However in a story with the dinosaurs it's really difficult make them interact without roars and growls, so I decide to image that in this world the dinosaurs collect the air in their aerial sacks and contract them to realease the gas all in once time; then they contract also the throat thanks to the neck muscles and in the end they used their enormous mouths as resonance cambers to emit powerful roars. It's not completly paleontology accurate, but... well, I like roaring dinosaurs.
4) Torosaurus is a very closer cousin of triceratops... or that is what we believe. We have just adult fossils of torosaurus and many paleontologyst believe that maybe it is just the full-grown form of the triceratops. However the debate is still going, so I decide to inserite it in my story, as a little reference on the documentary "Walking with dinosaurs". By the way, who remembers that masterpiece?
5) Rugops is a small theropod dinosaur that coexisted with spinosaurus 95 million years ago. Some estimates stabilish a length of 6 meters (the one found by Sobek was a young adult, so it was less then 4 meters). We didn't have fossil evidence of a battle between this two animals, and probably they were very rare: many paleontologists believe that the rugops was more a scavenger than a predator and it probably never dare to attack a beast almost three times larger than it. More, they belong to different ecological niches: spinosaurus was a fishivore while the rugops was a carnivore/scavenger. However it's possible that sometimes the rugops stole the fishes catched by the spinosaurus while it was distracted. In my story that is the case; also it's a little reference to another documentary, "Planet Dinosaur".
6) If you ask... yes, this story will be full of references. Let's see who could guess them all! In the next chapters I will insert again this little explanation, but... the chapter next! Write a comment if you see any reference, and the ones that recognize them will be cited in the next chapter! Also, if you have some questions, please write them in the comments: I will try to answer to everyone!
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