Day 1

Location: Sky High Hotel (Ground Floor)

Time: 3:34 AM

Primary Objective(s): Find the others [0/15], Find the Truth of The World

Secondary Objective(s): Find Nightlight City

The trip back down the Sky High Hotel did not take much longer than the one up did, even though Darius had vowed to take a better look around it to find at least some clue about where he was or what happened here, but all the doors in the hotel were annoyingly closed and locked. It made sense, in a hotel, but it was also slightly frustrating, going through floor over floor of hundreds of thousands of doors, and the only ones Darius was able to open was an old janitors closet, which looked like it had long ago been cleared out, and now all that was left was an empty grey room.

Darius hadn't even been able to get into his old room, not that he remembered which one that was, but he tried every door on the eight floor, and none of them worked, so...

And he couldn't even break off the lock, like he had with the padlock, but t wasn't for lack of trying. Darius had been there for a whole of fifteen minutes banging away at one of the locks with another piece of metal he had grabbed, but it seemed that this time, at least, lock beat metal. Darius had sunk away from the defeat vowing to get revenge, but so far, the hotel had one over him.

But now, on the ground floor, Darius had to admit his crushing defeat. It seemed the hotel was a little too advance for him, at least right now. It seemed the entire hotel had gone on lockdown, closing it's doors forever to the outside world and whatever disaster had plagued Bottleneck city. Where their even people here anymore? With the dinosaurs outside (how had they even gotten off the islands... how did they even exit?!), Darius doubted it. But then again, this wasn't some far off, secluded island, this was a city. People wouldn't give their city up easily, Darius knew. People didn't give anything up really, they just took, in his experience.

Darius checked the last door on the ground floor, door number one, and sighed. Once again, locked. It seemed he wouldn't be able to get into any of these rooms, unfortunately. Not that he'd really been thinking he could. He had already given up at floor seven.

Darius' head was hung low as he headed out of the hallway, but he brightened right up again when he saw the room he had wandered in to. The main entrance with the receptionist desk! There must be something here! Spirits revitalized, Darius hurried towards the rotting wooden desk that sat looking across the room at the entrance. Darius crinkled his nose as he came closer, but he didn't stop until he was behind the desk and looking through all the cabinets that were there. They, unfortunately, were locked, too, but unlike the door locks, Darius knew exactly how to deal with these locks.

"Come on, come on," Darius muttered to himself, moving back out from under the desk to the main room. Unlike most of the rooms in the hotel, it wasn't completely empty, there were scattering of old furniture set up in the large room, some of it right side up, but a lot of it upside down and on its side, like it have been thrown into this room. A lot of furniture, actually; matching chairs and bedframes and couches, all set up in here like it was a furniture store instead of the front of a hotel. It seemed like everything throughout all twelve floors had been taken out and put here, for some reason.

Darius stared at it, confused. The dinosaurs didn't do this. The only explanation had to be humans. But... why? He couldn't deny that it looked like the comfiest room in existence, if not the cleanest... but still, why?

Eventually, Darius just shook his head, and got back to work, looking under and around the multitude of furniture scattered around. But there was no debris on the floor, not like in any of the hallways... no, it looked like this place was swept clean.

As the minutes passed, Darius grew frustrated, but luckily, not frustrated enough to give up before he finally found the swept away debris that had been pushed away to a corner of the room and forgotten.

"Yes!" Darius cried, his voice echoing throughout the room, but his jubilation remained short, because just then, another sound echoed throughout the hall, one Darius was certain that did not come from him. A small shuffling and scraping sound, something somebody else might ignore, but Darius froze up, glancing around behind him.

The walls remained unchanged. Darius was sure of it, but he didn't stop searching until he was even more than a hundred percent certain.

There was... nothing. Darius was the only one in the room, and even if he wasn't, the only thing that could e in here with him would have to be small enough to hide behind one of those couches.

Still, it was better to never underestimate a dinosaur. Darius knelt, finding a rock with his fingertips and the standing up, raising it like a weapon. In his mind, Darius felt he looked frightening and dangerous. In reality, his hand was shaking. Violently.

Darius kept through the room as silently as possible, checking around every couch and chair for hidden assailants, but there was nothing. He made his way back to the front desk without incident.

As Darius went back around, a painting caught his eye. It was pretty small and hanging tilted on the way. It was... nice, Darius supposed, and a kind of cross between a renaissance painting and abstract art. It was clearly a person, but the eyes were all wrong, and the mouth had the wrong proportions... and Darius couldn't even tell what was wrong with the nose.

Shaking his head, Darius ignored the painting and went back to work, kneeling next to the cabinet and raising the rock. In his credit, he hesitated. But only for a second.

BANG!

BANG!

BANG!

It took about three minutes of constant work, but soon, with a metal screech, the lock snapped and fell away.

Darius cheered, setting the rock beside his knees and opened up the door.

"Hissss!"

A snarling mouth of teeth jumped out at him, and Darius screeched, falling back. He pulled himself away from the little spitting and snarling dinosaur, a troodontid, his mind unhelpfully supplied, but the troodontid followed him easily, padding forward on it's little feet and snarling. Suddenly, it crouched down, feathers on its head rising and... well, Darius didn't wait to see what it did next. He turned, struggling to his feet, and ran.

Darius' shoes squeaked on the floor as he ran, the dinosaur easily keeping up and occasionally nipping at Darius' heels, making him do a strange and weird dance to avoid it, turning left and right to try and get away from it.

The chase didn't last long. Eventually, Darius found himself in a room he had only glanced in before: the janitors closet.

Darius just barely managed to stop himself before slamming into the wall at top speed, putting his hands up to brace himself. A sharp pain flashed in his wrist, but Darius hardly noticed as he swung around, facing the troodontid that had followed him all the way here. He braced himself, waiting for an attack... but it never came. The troodontid watched him, glaring while it paced into front of the door, like a guard dog.

Darius blinked, breathing harshly. Every one of his instincts yelled at him to run, but where could he go? He was trapped by an animal less than half the size of him, walking in circles around the door. But despite its size, Darius knew he couldn't engage it. Troodontids were vicious, and smart. Which made its behavior right now all the more strange.

Darius really, really wished he hadn't forgotten his rock.

Finally, Darius sighed, sinking down the wall to sit cross-legged. Far as he could guess, the troodontid still identified him as a threat, and was waiting till he passed out in order to get at him more easily. Darius was flattered at being called 'dangerous', even by a wild animal, but he had no intention of becoming its snack.

So he yawned once, then settled in to wait the creature out, or, hopefully, to think of a better plan. Hopefully sooner, rather than later.

Day 1

Location: Sky High Hotel (Ground Floor)

Time: 6:59 AM

Darius awoke to the clattering of metal on the concrete ground. At first, he looked around blearily at his grey and dusty surroundings, wondering where he was, before he suddenly remembered. Darius cursed himself before following asleep, a split second before he realized, hey, he was still alive.

Darius looked up at the doorway, and saw three things: first, a very annoyed looking man with a large mustache, second, the troodontid sitting beside him, looking far more relaxed than it had last night, and three... the two padlocks Darius had broken a couple of hours ago, obviously the source of the noise that had woken Darius up earlier.

Darius winced, and a scraping noise drew his attention back up to the man with the odd mustache, who was dragging a chair Darius hadn't seen before over to the doorway. The man sat there, and stared hard at Darius.

At first, the look reminded Darius of an angry teacher and a child, but then he quickly realized it wasn't the same. Darius... he couldn't figure out what the stare was like.

Darius gulped nervously, and dropped his gaze to the dinosaur curled by the man's feet.

"Is-Is that your troodontid?" Darius asked, trying to sound friendly, but he was willing to bet he came out sounding even younger than he actually was.

Luckily, though, it still got the man talking. "This here is Dragon. He's my security system. Trained him right up for catching sneaky little thieves like you. Or, well, I suppose not so sneaky."

The man looked down to the locks, still on the floor. He scoffed.

"I suppose I could kill you right now, and get it over with, but unfortunately, I have some questions for you." The man didn't look happy about that, but Darius breathed an inward sigh of relief. "So... what kind of idiot are you?"

Darius frowned. "I... what?"

"Are you a Sunlow idiot?" the man asked, leaning back. "A Moon Quarter idiot? Don't tell me you're from White Side."

Darius blinked. "Uh... y-yeah, one of those places. Whitelow, I think."

The man frowned, tilting his head. "Where exactly do you think lying's going to get you, man? And bad lies, at that. And don't think you can be smart with me, either."

"I'm not-!" Darius cried, before he saw light glint of something hooked onto the man's side, and he gulped. Maybe it was better to try and lie his way through this situation. "Okay. I'll stop. I'm from... Moon Quarter."

The man's frown tightened. "Which one?"

Oh no. "Three? Three."

"I thought everyone there was dead."

Oh no. "Uh, clearly not everyone."

The man frowned again, this time deeper. He studied Darius, clearly trying to decide if he was lying or not. After a good, long, minute, he seemed to decide that the results were inconclusive.

"Fine," he finally grumbled. "So you're from a Moon Quarter. Doesn't explain much. What kind of idiot do you have to be to walk into Bottleneck City. Or worse, what could have possibly made you want to steal from me. The nearest entrance is miles away, surely you must have been warned on the way."

Darius stuttered. This next lie would probably be much harder than the last. "U-Uh, I...."

Darius raised his hand awkwardly, using it to scratch at his head while he wracked his brain for another lie, but then he spotted The Red Box. After that, the lie came easy.

"I... I'm really sorry for breaking into your... place," Darius told him, completely sincerely if only for the trouble it got him into. "I was looking for another place. One of those Spark Tech locations."

Darius raised his wrist to show the man his watch, even though it was already pretty obvious. "I want to get this off."

"You must have passed more Spark Tech Centers on the way here," the man said, his eyes flickering to the watch. But despite what he said, there was no doubt in his words. He seemed to be buying the lie pretty well.

"None of them could help," Darius told him, shrugging. The man huffed.

"Well, I get that," he said begrudgingly. "But clearly, this is not a Center. You still broke into my shop. You want to tell me why? What excuse do you got for me now, huh?"

Darius blinked, and then lifted his empty satchel. This, at least, wasn't a lie. Not much of one, anyway. The man rolled his eyes, pulling on his mustache. Apparently, the line of questioning was over, and now he leaned back, studying Darius and pondering the conversation. As he did, he lowered his fingers towards the troodontid, and Darius winced, but the troodontid didn't bite off his fingers, like it should. Instead, it nuzzled them, like a dog. The man barely seemed to notice as he sat in thought. Darius nervously awaited his verdict.

Finally, the man sighed, and drew something out of his long and tattered coat. Long ago it may have been considered something high fashion and expensive, but now it looked like garbage. Darius saw that he had drawn a large cigarette when the man lit it.

"Well, far as I can tell, you're an idiot," the man concluded, puffing on his cigarette. "But you're a lucky one, too, surviving the genocide on Moon Quarter three and making it this far. Or maybe perhaps you're cursed. Same difference. In any case, I want you to do something for me before that luck runs out."

Darius' brow furrowed, and he frowned. He didn't trust this man, at all. "Like a job?"

The man snorted. "Heh! Bold, too. Yeah, sure, call it what you want. Makes no difference to me."

Darius didn't like the sound of that. "What do you mean? What do you want?"

"I'll answer the second question because it's less stupid," the man laughed. "Marginally. I need people like you are useful because they actually tend to change things in this stilted ruin we folks call a city. For better or worse, at least. Anyway, I need you to go to another old skyscraper, an old office building for... well, something or other, who cares now. Go there and clear it out."

Darius frowned. "Of what?"

"Some humans," the man replied, nonchalantly. "And some of their dinosaurs."

"Which ones?"

"How am I supposed to know?" the man said, shrugging. "Plant eating ones is all I know. Never saw much of them myself, I just know they exist."

Darius had opened his to ask more questions, but closed his mouth at that admission. Well, that would be useless, but more worries took its place.

"How... How am I supposed to clear it out?" Darius asked him. "I don't want to hurt them..."

"That will be your problem, won't it?" the man hummed. "But here, I'll throw you a bone: If they ask, tell them Kin and Dragon sent you. That'll send most of them running."

"Who are they? The humans, I mean?"

"You'll see," the man, Kin, Darius guessed. He seemed to have gotten bored of the conversation. "So, do we have a deal?"

Darius frowned, feeling awkward. How to refuse... "I don't know," he said, slowly. "I have to get somewhere-to the center, and I have to meet someone, so..."

A clink interrupted him as Kin drew the metal gun from his side.

"I forgot to inform you of what you'll get in this deal," he said, almost sounding amused. He pointed the silver gun at Darius. "Your life."

Darius' next protests died in his throat.

Day 1

Location: Center Street, Bottleneck City

Time: 8:15 AM

Darius walked the line between the glass on one side of the road and glass on the other. It wasn't a very big line, and stray pieces of glass always seemed to find its way underfoot, but Darius' shoes (his NEW shoes) held up pretty well.

Darius followed the map on The Red Box. The red line pointing to his original destination was going in the opposite direction, but there was a new one, an orange one, heading to a place called Bottleneck Power Station. He could see it in the distance, poking over other, shorter buildings, but he could tell that he was nowhere near it yet.

Darius sighed. He wondered what would happen if he just left... probably nothing good, if everything on the island taught him anything.

As he walked, Darius took to sightseeing the buildings around him. Not that there was much to see, usually, there was a destroyed building on one side, the foundation of one on another, and a pile of bricks or rubble scattered along the road... the only thing around was destruction. Not much to look at. Not even a dinosaur.

Where had they all gone?

Suddenly, Darius' peaceful walk was interrupted by a thunderous noise. Darius jumped in surprise, and almost stumbled back onto the pile of glass. He stopped himself, just in time.

"What was-?" he started asking himself, but he didn't get the words out before the sound of even more gunfire echoed throughout the buildings. Darius threw his hands over his ears, trying to wait for it to stop, and after way too long, it did.

Darius slowly took his hands down from his ears, ready to throw them back up again if he heard those sounds again. He did, but not right away. Instead, he heard something worse.

A long, deep groan echoed throughout the momentary silence, and Darius' eyes shot open. It was a slightly different sound than what he was used to, but he'd recognise that sound anywhere. A hadrosaur was in danger!

Darius was running before he even realized it, panicking roaring in his ears and drowning out the sound of gunfire that had started up again. In fact, he barely even registered that fact until he turned a corner and saw them.

Darius stumbled back around the corner, away from the exploding bits of concrete and bullets flying everywhere. But he wasn't fast enough.

"Ack!" Darius cried, his hand flying up to the cut on his shoulder. Whit hot pain raced through his arm and he panicked, shrugging off his coat. He looked at the injury, scared... but it was only a scratch. Darius breathed a sigh of relief, and dropped his hand. It hurt, badly, and it looked like it was burned, too, but he'd live. The more important thing was that he hadn't spotted the dinosaur in danger yet.

However, Darius was not a complete idiot. He wasn't running back in there again, he was going to need a high and safer vantage point. Darius' eye fell to the building he was hiding behind. The words 'Lan-mat' was written, and almost completely faded across the front.

The ladder on the other side was... new, actually. Or it looked like it have been fastened there recently, not when everything else had crumpled. Darius still felt the rust flak away as he gripped onto the iron bars, and he shuddered. This must have been put here for a purpose, after all, and he worried what waited for him when he scaled up the old building.

Still, Darius cast those worries aside, and hurried up, ignoring the screaming pain in his right shoulder, begging for him to stop. He didn't hesitate as he came to the top, crawling over the side of the building and onto the top, and, thankfully, wasn't immediately shot down. He flinched away when he saw someone on top, lying on the concrete with a gun, and then relaxed when he saw that the person was already dead.

All Darius saw of the dead sniper was that it happened, probably recently, in this very battle, and that he was young, dressed in strange, muted robes. Then Darius saw his face, and he looked away, feeling sick. He vowed not to look at the man anymore, or he might puke.

Instead, he poked his head over the side the edge of the building, peering over and trying his best not to draw attention to himself.

Beyond the building was a battlefield, with people dying left, right and center from all matter of things: bullets, explosions that seemed to come out of nowhere, and sometimes falling debris. A clearing had been made between some buildings, like a town square might look, but this almost certainly hadn't been built that way. People of all kinds laid dead in the center, old people, young children, and men and women dressed in tattered clothes. There was even the occasional person dressed like the sniper a little bit away from Darius. Soldiers, he presumed. They were outnumbered by the amount of dead civilians. And yet the battle razed on.

Darius tore his eyes from the gruesome sight, and started looking for the dinosaur. That, he knew at least, was probably still alive.

It didn't take long to find it. Across the clearing was a lone Telmatosaurus, pacing outside the gunfire and calling across to... something. It seemed agitated, and Darius frowned. It was obvious they wanted across the gunfire to get something, but it was afraid. But what could be so important that it wouldn't have been scared off already? Darius sat back, trying to think. What could be so important to this hadrosaur that they would have stayed here instead of going with their herd or being scared off by the threat in the area?

...Okay, well, after a little bit of thought, it was pretty obvious, wasn't it? Darius nearly facepalmed. Why else, if not for a child?

Darius backed away from the edge quickly, back towards the ladder. It held steady to the building, even with Darius' frantic climb down, where he used it more as a fireman's pole than a ladder.

As soon as Darius' feet hit the pavement, he was running around the building, searching all three sides frantically. But there was no baby Telmatosaurus to be found around any of them, and soon, there was only one place to check. The place Darius had originally gotten shot.

"It can't ever be easy, can it?" Darius sighed, leaning against the building beside him. If the hadrosaur was anywhere outside, chances were that it had already gotten shot, but Darius knew that that side had been the front entrance of the laundromat. Either it was outside, or it had gotten inside somehow. And now Darius had to go in there, too.

Okay. First Darius had to calm down. He took a deep breath, and then waited. Going out there into the battle right now was suicide, but it he was patient and lucky, then it might just... Yes, there! A break in the gunfire. Darius raced around the side, and then slipped through the open doorway just before it started up again. Darius could swear that he practically heard the bullets whiz by him, hitting at the hair at the nape of his neck, but when he raised his hand to rub at the spot, it was fine. No evidence of any bullets at all.

Darius breath a sigh of relief. "Oh thank god," he said out loud, but he almost couldn't hear himself. In this building, the smattering of bullets could perhaps be mistaken as rain, but rain as in a complete downpour. If this was an actual storm, it would be terrifying. Not that this wasn't. In fact, Darius would prefer the storm to this reality.

Which brought him back to his goal. Darius searched the room, finding marks on the floor that used to have washing machines on them, but now they had all been moved to the walls. Barricades, Darius realized. He was grateful for the extra protection while he looked.

A sudden noise made his jump, his head snapping over to the left corner. Darius' hand fell to his satchel, but it was still empty. Darius cursed himself for not picking up a rock, or any kind of weapon, before coming in here.

Darius gulped, and moved closer. Other than the light from the doorway, the old building was dark, and the washing machines covered up any windows that may have been helpful. Darius felt completely unprepared as he crept up to the darkened corner of the room.

"H-Hello?" he called out nervously, his voice barely a whisper above the roaring gunfire outside. But it was loud enough, apparently, because something responded.

"Meep!" came a small cry from the corner of the room. "Meep! Meep!"

Darius relaxed, though not much. He did, however, start moving faster towards the corner of the room while what he assumed was the tiny baby Telmatosaurus continued to call out for him.

"I'm here, I'm here," Darius called back, finally spotting the tiny thing, barely bigger than his hand. It was inside one of the machines, but when Darius tugged on it, it didn't budge.

"What the-," he started, before spotting the heavy padlock on the side. Darius' eyes widened. "One of these things again? Who would have done this?!"

Darius looked back at the tiny dinosaur, trying to look as reassuring as possible. "I'll be back soon, I promise. I'll get you out, just give me a second."

The tiny Telmatosaurus meeped at him, but Darius ignored it for the moment, turning away even though it broke his heart to do so. He started searching the floor for any rocks or rubble. But the floor seemed to have been cleaned at some point, and there was nothing that Darius could grab onto. Even with all the destruction outside, the washing machines had done their work in this place, as frustrating as that was.

Now, it seemed that his only option was outside, with the raining bullet hell. Darius took a deep breath, and once again prepared himself to run out there and back as soon as possible. He moved forward and gripped a washing machine, and then waited.

...Wait.

Darius backed up, trying to peer into the machine he was beside. If whoever had locked up that telmatosaur had used it once, then... Bingo! Darius let out a 'whoop' as he opened u the washing machine, finding a whole pile of guns inside. He wasn't going to use any of them, but it was something, right?

Darius opened the next one, and cheered again. Inside this one, more guns, so Darius closed that one as well and looked through the next one.

This time, he was a little more lucky. Bricks were in this one, but in a odd shape. Instead of their usually rectangular prism, they were shaped more like a cylinder, with a flat base and a rounded top. It had a very familiar shape, but Darius didn't think much of it before grabbing it, and carrying over to the telmatosaurus' cage.

There, he used his usual technique, all too familiar by now.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

Three well placed strikes and the lock was on the floor. This time, Darius was a little smarter, and he slipped the brick into his satchel for safekeeping. It weighed him down, but Darius barely noticed as he opened the door, taking the Telmatosaurus out. It screeched and flailed around in his grasp, and Darius winced apologetically.

"Sorry," he told the whiney baby in his grasp. "I would let you go, but, well, I have longer legs than you do. Just trust me, okay?"

Unsurprisingly, the baby dinosaur didn't seem to want to listen. Darius gave it another apology as he tightened his grip.

Now he was ready to go. Darius stood by the same washing machine he had been beside before, and once again waited. It did not take long for there to be a gap in the gun. Quickly, perhaps too quickly, Darius ran forward, but he did not get nearly as far as he did last time. A searing pain raced up his right leg as it suddenly stopped working, and Darius tripped, gracelessly falling to the floor as he curled around himself, desperately trying to protect the little creature in his grasp.

He gasped on the ground, and could feel painful electricity running up and down his leg. Above him, the bullets seemed to make a web, and Darius hunkered even closer to the destroyed pavement below him.

Darius panicked, not knowing what to do. His fingers felt slippery on the hadrosaurs skin, and he kept his grip tight. But a new horrible jolt in his leg loosened his fingers, and the little Telmatosaurus slipped away.

"No!" Darius cried, reaching out for the creature as it ran. It had clearly spotted its parent across the clearly, and was now running towards it, and nothing would stop it.

Nothing except a stray bullet, probably.

Footnotes:

New Skill Added: Ad-libs 1

Using this skill, you are able to better move through this world undetected and get what want. To level up, you must either find out other ways to make your lies more believable, or try to become part of this world, in order to blend in.