The dense jungles of Kraw changed people. Of all the Crossroads’ worlds, this lush, green, vibrant orb hummed with a foreboding song, one that warned the galaxy’s denizens to stay away; far away. For the most part, they listened. Those that didn’t and faced down the fears their peers could not… well, if they didn’t die out in the wilderness, something inside them did. They never came back, or they never came back quite the same. Kraw spared few.
Fallen leaves and wet grass crunched beneath Hansen’s heavy boots as he trekked through the darkest part of the jungle he’d yet seen. The trees here snaked upwards and wove together, their bark a mixture of purplish-blacks and faded grays. The colors of the leaves stretched through a gradient of brown, dead, and mangled to shadows of the emerald green blanketing the rest of the planet. These were from the top of the canopy, meant to disguise this twisted sector of Kraw from the outside world; to give it the appearance of life when, to the bounty hunter, it seemed like there might be none left.
He’d excavated countless ruins on his quest to find the heart of the planet’s mysterious hunger. Ghosts haunted the hallways of those dank places, cheap imitations of the societies that had thrived on the planet decades — perhaps even centuries — before Indy and the redhead had ‘staked their claim’ here. For Chris’ money, their ‘University’ still had a dearth of knowledge about this place, and the way they’d violated the sacred temples of Abraxas to create their hunter’s paradise was shameful. They knew nothing of the life the planet left behind, concerned only with taking the life making its way now and twisting it to their own design and their own devices.
The ruins that rose up out of the ground around him now, though, were altogether different. This time, no matter how good his intentions, he felt like an invader. In an attempt to show the spirits of civilization long past, he shouldered his blaster rifle as he approached the entrance to what appeared to be a large antechamber. The forest didn’t back down, but also didn’t lunge.
He took the next brave step and crossed the threshold.
The interior starkly differed from the dark jungle just outside it. The perfectly-round chamber was immaculate, brightly lit by iridescent flames that flickered every color imaginable, including ones that esteemed bounty hunter Chris Hansen had never seen before. Illuminated by these lights, Hansen could see that the walls of the chamber were constructed from a type of stone that looked almost… cosmic, sparkling so that it almost looked as if the stars themselves waltzed across it.
Just ahead, a small creature wriggled atop a marble platform that rose, Hansen guessed, to about his waist. The tiny, violet-skinned dino seemed to be feasting on something small and unremarkable, a strange juxtaposition to the grandiose magnificence of this place. Hansen smirked beneath the scarf covering half his face, lifting up his blaster rifle. So, one of the planet’s wildlife had decided it would turn this, the center of Kraw’s mysterious vacant past, into its dining hall. He would tame the beast as he’d learned to tame the planet and restore the integrity of this ancient chamber.
With a long, slow breath, he pressed down on the trigger and a crimson bolt of energy sped hyper fast at the small carnivore, but seconds before it reached its target, it… stopped.
Hansen blinked for a moment as the laser bolt hung in the air, whirring gently. He lowered the rifle as the miniature Tyrannosaurus rex lifted his maw from his meal and glanced over his shoulder at the bewildered intruder. The little lizard blinked, and the energy blast dissolved into nothingness.
“You’re no normal rex,” Hansen muttered, and Chomper’s sharp teeth curled into a strangely happy-go-lucky smile.
“Why don’t you have a seat?”
Black tendrils — or vines? — riddled with purple veins slashed through the wide doorway of the antechamber, wrapping around Chris Hansen’s legs and snapping them in seconds. The bounty hunter crumpled, his screams ringing throughout the room. Chomper leapt casually down from his perch and started to waddle toward the would-be explorer.
“You came into my home and tried to get me,” the dinosaur poured, crossing his little arms. “Don’t you know she doesn’t like that?”
The tendrils tugged on Hansen’s shattered limbs, and pain began to shoot up. “Who… are you?”
Or… what?
“The name‘s Chomper,” the little reptile said, almost bouncing as he did so. “And, well… I guess you can call me the big boss of this place. Or something like that. I like to make her happy.” He reached out with a tiny arm and started to pet one of the vines, eliciting a dumbfounded stare from the bounty hunter. “After all, she’s the only thing I have left from before,” he continued. “The others just didn’t understand her. But I did!”
He hopped back, smiling again, and scurried back to the feast of bugs that had started to escape from his makeshift dinner table. “Oh no you don’t!” the dinosaur cried, reaching out and snatching up several selections of grub and stuffing them into his mouth. Hansen lifted his blaster rifle to try and catch the beast unawares, but Chomper’s gaze snapped back to him and he lifted a tiny arm.
As if directed by the dino’s spindly fingers, another vine burst from the ground and wrapped around Hansen’s wrist, squeezing so hard he dropped the rifle. As the gun clattered to the chamber’s floor, the tendril yanked hard and ripped off the whole offending hand. The bounty hunter let out another scream, and Chomper waved another digit, summoning another vine to plunge down Chris Hansen’s throat and silence him.
Hansen flailed silently, alive but at a total loss for what to do next. He felt like one of the men he’d hunted in his past life, before he’d landed in the Crossroads and gotten a taste for protecting the sanctity of the ancient civilizations on Kraw. Before he’d made it his life’s work to discover the secrets of their history, and avenge their loss.
Chomper chuckled. “Their loss,” he smiled. “That’s a good joke!”
Hansen blinked, as much as he was able… did the beast read his mind?
“They betrayed us,” the dinosaur shrugged. “They deserved it.”
The words were harsh, but the reptile seemed cheery and unbothered. Perhaps that came from centuries of watching humans and other creatures of their ilk try and ‘tame’ the world he — they — had worked so hard to fashion. The wilderness of Kraw was unforgiving, and in that way…
Its Arbiter had learned to be as well.
Chomper flicked an arm, and the four vines wrapped around Chris Hansen’s limbs yoinked him out of the antechamber and back into the dark, twisted forest, disturbing some of the marble flooring as they went. The tiny Arbiter licked his fingers to get the last bit of bug guts off of them, then frowned at the destruction.
Carefully, he closed his eyes and waved a hand, and one by one, the marble flooring seemed to… grow back, stone by stone, until once again, it was perfect; undisturbed, as if no silly adventurer had been there at all.
The little thing looked around at the room. Few hunters ever made it here — fewer still were those who truly understood the purpose of the planet and its hunger. Thus far, Chomper had yet to meet a soul who could empathize with her, who could truly commune with her the way he could, and so here he remained, safeguarding her greatest secret.
What happened next shocked him.
A rumbling echoed throughout the chamber, different from the one he normally felt. He glanced around for disturbances, but none made themselves visible. He closed his eyes. In a flash, he’d disappeared.
At the top of the jungle canopy, the tiny purple rex materialized on a high branch and looked up at the sky. The vibrations breached her atmosphere once again, almost knocking him from the tree. He focused his beady eyes on their source.
Distantly, Chomper saw a trembling shadow, and fear snaked up his tail.
Fallen leaves and wet grass crunched beneath Hansen’s heavy boots as he trekked through the darkest part of the jungle he’d yet seen. The trees here snaked upwards and wove together, their bark a mixture of purplish-blacks and faded grays. The colors of the leaves stretched through a gradient of brown, dead, and mangled to shadows of the emerald green blanketing the rest of the planet. These were from the top of the canopy, meant to disguise this twisted sector of Kraw from the outside world; to give it the appearance of life when, to the bounty hunter, it seemed like there might be none left.
He’d excavated countless ruins on his quest to find the heart of the planet’s mysterious hunger. Ghosts haunted the hallways of those dank places, cheap imitations of the societies that had thrived on the planet decades — perhaps even centuries — before Indy and the redhead had ‘staked their claim’ here. For Chris’ money, their ‘University’ still had a dearth of knowledge about this place, and the way they’d violated the sacred temples of Abraxas to create their hunter’s paradise was shameful. They knew nothing of the life the planet left behind, concerned only with taking the life making its way now and twisting it to their own design and their own devices.
The ruins that rose up out of the ground around him now, though, were altogether different. This time, no matter how good his intentions, he felt like an invader. In an attempt to show the spirits of civilization long past, he shouldered his blaster rifle as he approached the entrance to what appeared to be a large antechamber. The forest didn’t back down, but also didn’t lunge.
He took the next brave step and crossed the threshold.
The interior starkly differed from the dark jungle just outside it. The perfectly-round chamber was immaculate, brightly lit by iridescent flames that flickered every color imaginable, including ones that esteemed bounty hunter Chris Hansen had never seen before. Illuminated by these lights, Hansen could see that the walls of the chamber were constructed from a type of stone that looked almost… cosmic, sparkling so that it almost looked as if the stars themselves waltzed across it.
Just ahead, a small creature wriggled atop a marble platform that rose, Hansen guessed, to about his waist. The tiny, violet-skinned dino seemed to be feasting on something small and unremarkable, a strange juxtaposition to the grandiose magnificence of this place. Hansen smirked beneath the scarf covering half his face, lifting up his blaster rifle. So, one of the planet’s wildlife had decided it would turn this, the center of Kraw’s mysterious vacant past, into its dining hall. He would tame the beast as he’d learned to tame the planet and restore the integrity of this ancient chamber.
With a long, slow breath, he pressed down on the trigger and a crimson bolt of energy sped hyper fast at the small carnivore, but seconds before it reached its target, it… stopped.
Hansen blinked for a moment as the laser bolt hung in the air, whirring gently. He lowered the rifle as the miniature Tyrannosaurus rex lifted his maw from his meal and glanced over his shoulder at the bewildered intruder. The little lizard blinked, and the energy blast dissolved into nothingness.
“You’re no normal rex,” Hansen muttered, and Chomper’s sharp teeth curled into a strangely happy-go-lucky smile.
“Why don’t you have a seat?”
Black tendrils — or vines? — riddled with purple veins slashed through the wide doorway of the antechamber, wrapping around Chris Hansen’s legs and snapping them in seconds. The bounty hunter crumpled, his screams ringing throughout the room. Chomper leapt casually down from his perch and started to waddle toward the would-be explorer.
“You came into my home and tried to get me,” the dinosaur poured, crossing his little arms. “Don’t you know she doesn’t like that?”
The tendrils tugged on Hansen’s shattered limbs, and pain began to shoot up. “Who… are you?”
Or… what?
“The name‘s Chomper,” the little reptile said, almost bouncing as he did so. “And, well… I guess you can call me the big boss of this place. Or something like that. I like to make her happy.” He reached out with a tiny arm and started to pet one of the vines, eliciting a dumbfounded stare from the bounty hunter. “After all, she’s the only thing I have left from before,” he continued. “The others just didn’t understand her. But I did!”
He hopped back, smiling again, and scurried back to the feast of bugs that had started to escape from his makeshift dinner table. “Oh no you don’t!” the dinosaur cried, reaching out and snatching up several selections of grub and stuffing them into his mouth. Hansen lifted his blaster rifle to try and catch the beast unawares, but Chomper’s gaze snapped back to him and he lifted a tiny arm.
As if directed by the dino’s spindly fingers, another vine burst from the ground and wrapped around Hansen’s wrist, squeezing so hard he dropped the rifle. As the gun clattered to the chamber’s floor, the tendril yanked hard and ripped off the whole offending hand. The bounty hunter let out another scream, and Chomper waved another digit, summoning another vine to plunge down Chris Hansen’s throat and silence him.
Hansen flailed silently, alive but at a total loss for what to do next. He felt like one of the men he’d hunted in his past life, before he’d landed in the Crossroads and gotten a taste for protecting the sanctity of the ancient civilizations on Kraw. Before he’d made it his life’s work to discover the secrets of their history, and avenge their loss.
Chomper chuckled. “Their loss,” he smiled. “That’s a good joke!”
Hansen blinked, as much as he was able… did the beast read his mind?
“They betrayed us,” the dinosaur shrugged. “They deserved it.”
The words were harsh, but the reptile seemed cheery and unbothered. Perhaps that came from centuries of watching humans and other creatures of their ilk try and ‘tame’ the world he — they — had worked so hard to fashion. The wilderness of Kraw was unforgiving, and in that way…
Its Arbiter had learned to be as well.
Chomper flicked an arm, and the four vines wrapped around Chris Hansen’s limbs yoinked him out of the antechamber and back into the dark, twisted forest, disturbing some of the marble flooring as they went. The tiny Arbiter licked his fingers to get the last bit of bug guts off of them, then frowned at the destruction.
Carefully, he closed his eyes and waved a hand, and one by one, the marble flooring seemed to… grow back, stone by stone, until once again, it was perfect; undisturbed, as if no silly adventurer had been there at all.
The little thing looked around at the room. Few hunters ever made it here — fewer still were those who truly understood the purpose of the planet and its hunger. Thus far, Chomper had yet to meet a soul who could empathize with her, who could truly commune with her the way he could, and so here he remained, safeguarding her greatest secret.
What happened next shocked him.
A rumbling echoed throughout the chamber, different from the one he normally felt. He glanced around for disturbances, but none made themselves visible. He closed his eyes. In a flash, he’d disappeared.
At the top of the jungle canopy, the tiny purple rex materialized on a high branch and looked up at the sky. The vibrations breached her atmosphere once again, almost knocking him from the tree. He focused his beady eyes on their source.
Distantly, Chomper saw a trembling shadow, and fear snaked up his tail.