Unchosen Champion-Chapter 355: Chile
Amanda and Mikey B were leaving the terraced Amantaní settlement at the same time as Coop. The Outrider and her faithful partner would depart in the opposite direction compared to the Champion, fulfilling the directive of their own mission. They were just another example of the efforts being undertaken to unite humanity throughout the continent. Hundreds of others from Ghost Reef were exploring South America and networking with the various settlements and thousands more were supporting their expeditions while Coop drifted from place to place.
Amanda and Mikey were bound for the third destination of what was their fourth inland trip. After the settlement where they met up with Coop, they were meant to make contact with a series of shardless human encampments that had emerged to the north west of Lake Titicaca, starting with a place called Vinicunca, also known as the Mountain of Seven Colors.
Coop felt a wave of curiosity when they told him about their itinerary, immediately interested by their brief descriptions. A mountain that had two more colors than the River of Five Colors that he had briefly visited with Juliana and Sierra? He really wanted to know what the other two colors would be, but Amanda promised to let him know when they all met back up at home instead of letting him be overly distracted.
From there, the pair of scouts were heading through the ruins of Cusco and into the Sacred Valley until they reached Machu Picchu. They had plans to connect with the strongholds that had endured from the mountain tops while collecting any individual survivors along the way. Their circuitous trek was significantly more consolidated than Coop’s, but each time they left the coast, they still covered nearly a thousand miles on foot as they looped back to the waiting ships. It was far more than a normal person could have sustained.
The Tempest Fleet and the Lighthouse had established a rally point at an oasis settlement called Huacachina, which would be Amanda and Mikey’s final rendezvous point for their current expedition. When they told Coop about their first two beach trips, starting with Máncora, Peru, he couldn’t help but feel like he had missed out. It seemed like he had strayed too far inland to get a proper feel for the beaches along the pacific side of the continent. He thought it was a shame that he was southbound, since it was the opposite direction of the beaches the pair of scouts described.
Coop had to follow the Andes toward the bottom of the continent, through almost the entire length of Chile to reach the southernmost civilization shard in South America. It would be a long journey, potentially twice as long as any individual leg during his marathon across the continent, but there was no one better suited to make the trip without the aid of the fleet.
He had visited more than a dozen civilization shards on his winding journey, starting from La Piedra, and found close to three times as many unofficial refuges that were bolstered by mana pylons. There had been hundreds of examples of individuals and small communities holding out on their own without the taming effect of official territory who were evacuating to Ghost Reef instead, and there were a handful of extremely large bastions that had survived without shards that were discussing their options to relocate to safety or dig in with the help of the Lighthouse.
Coop thought it was a decently thorough trip, considering there had been less than 20 official settlements in South America by their count after the Underlayer Event. Between all the different groups that were contributing to the Lighthouse, he really believed that they had touched almost every corner of the continent, even if he wasn’t personally involved in every connection. Hopefully, those who were still isolated would receive word of the collective efforts being undertaken to unite people in the face of future threats.
His final destination would demand a huge journey from him, but after the distances he had already covered, he wasn’t discouraged. After saying his goodbyes, Coop mistjumped south from Lake Titicaca and quickly found himself in the driest environment he could imagine. The Atacama Desert was unexpectedly alien even by his standards. If Coop had been told he was on Mars, he would have believed it.
The entire landscape was a painterly study in the surprising breadth of ochre hues. Combined with the red tinged sky, and the landscapes were nothing like any he had experienced before. Rock formations that had been sculpted by wind and time stood like monuments that intended to outlast humans just as they predated them. Coop trekked across vast sand dunes, paused to gape at towering volcanoes with little clouds at their peaks in the distance, and admired the movie-like set that was the Valle de la Luna, according to one surviving sign.
Despite the harsh dryness, he discovered a surprising variety of wildlife casually culling the struggling Primal Constructs, especially in the uplands, away from the coast. He excitedly identified the first creature he saw at the start of his journey, believing it to be a llama, but found that the fluffy creature was actually an alpaca. Coop thought his guess was pretty close, but didn’t think he deserved credit for a correct estimation.
The next animal he also guessed to be a llama was very similar to the alpaca. However, it was something called a guanaco. It was surprisingly calm, even friendly, despite having a level that rivaled Coop’s. He had a chance to pet its shockingly soft fur as it lingered behind its herd, almost as curious about Coop as he was about it.
The third animal he saw was definitely a llama. He noted it was smaller than the guanaco and apparently preferred the higher elevations compared to the previous creatures, more like the alpaca he spotted first. But when Coop inspected its aura, it declared it to be something called a vicuña.
After that Coop gave up on predicting llamas. Later, he believed he spotted a fat little rabbit exploring the rocky outcroppings above the treeline. Its ears were a dead giveaway, but its curly tail threw him off a bit. Still, he was confident it was a rabbit until he identified it as a viscacha.
“Oh, come on.” He had complained to the dry wind.
It was obvious Coop hadn’t traveled enough. None of the animals were what he expected. It didn’t help that convergent evolution had established creatures with such similar features in completely different parts of the world. He was pretty confident in his ability to identify animals in and around the Everglades, but everything was thrown off once he got a few thousand miles and a hemisphere away from home.
Eventually, he reached some brackish water lakes and high-altitude lagoons where a large number of birds dominated. Flamingoes in particular were all over the place, occupying the still waters in massive flocks. Though he only hesitantly identified the pink creatures, Coop was finally correct with his visual identification, thanks in large part to his collection of plastic lawn ornament souvenirs taken from the Heartland. Maybe he wasn’t as untraveled as it seemed.
The birds shared the shoreline with colonies of horned coots that lowered their heads and chased after each other into the shallow water, grunting at each other as they went. There were so many birds that Coop expected many to be unleveled, but by his estimation, nine out of every ten animals had not only begun leveling, but had progressed beyond level 100. He had to admit that he was impressed.
The environments were harsh, but the Primal Constructs continued to try and claim territory. They seemed emboldened by the lack of official territory, as if its absence was an invitation for them to create their own.
Unlike his trek through the Amazon rainforest, he had no trouble picking fights with the invaders, even routinely uncovering Elite variants, though none of them provided new Slayer quest chains. There was enough pressure from the native wildlife to prevent any proper formations from developing as well, so Coop was destroying monsters for little more than the uncommon materials he scavenged from their defeats. He just couldn’t bring himself to leave any opportunity for the invaders to develop, no matter how small.
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The difference in Construct presence between the environments seemed to be a result of the natural density of animals. The rainforest was absolutely packed, but the desert was comparatively thin. Still, the animals that called the various habitats home had no reluctance in squaring up with the planetary sponsor. They matched Coop’s enthusiasm for fighting though he had them beat in the desire to explore.
As far as the assimilation was concerned, the untamed territory within the Atacama Desert and Andes plateaus were still completely unclaimed whether by planetary sponsor or indigenous factions. Coop wanted to encourage his allies to start dropping mana pylons all over the place to just let the native animals completely take over, but he suspected it might be a bit difficult to distribute that many resources all from Ghost Reef alone, and potentially losing any pylons to invaders was a wasteful proposition. Hopefully, the additional contributions from the Coral Forest and the inevitable completion of the underground construction would enable them to push outwards even further as time went on.
Coop dislodged the few embedded concentrations of Primal Constructs, preventing the planetary sponsor from establishing itself anywhere in the northern portion of Chile. As he did so, he ran into desert nomads that had taken to the harsh environment from either the coast or the other side of the mountains in order to avoid the invaders as much as possible. Coop exchanged bits of information, letting them know of their options, and they promised to spread the word to the isolated, formerly abandoned, saltpeter towns that had become their meeting points. Coop had skipped right past the ghost towns and former communes that had been reclaimed by the desert, but according to the people he found, they remained empty most of the time anyway. They had a system that relied on written messages to counter the inevitable missed connections.
They told him about how much more dangerous the southern portion of South America had been, especially on the eastern grasslands that made up much of Argentina in the early days. Whether it was humans fighting humans or aliens raiding their gathering points, it sounded like the same chaotic apocalypse story that Ghost Reef had dodged by being a small island. Things only calmed down after the so-called emperor started to spread his influence.
Coop was surprised that even thousands of miles away, soft influence of this enigmatic leader was felt. The Lighthouse relied on mana pylons to establish leverage over the Primal Constructs beyond their settlements, but this emperor had done the same with simple armed patrols. Supposedly, even before the Tempest Fleet had arrived, the emperor was spreading his authority up both coasts, reaching Brazil on one side and Peru on the other while providing support for the locals through engaging the invaders.
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According to more than one person, places as distant as Easter Island, the Galapagos, and the South Sandwich Islands were also under his protection. A large reason why the continent had been so stable without any obvious powerhouse settlements or factions was the emperor and his troops. Coop couldn’t imagine what their navy was like to have begun exploring the open ocean even before the Tempest Fleet.
The nomads pointed him to a gathering place for his own navy, on some small islands called Isla Damas and Isla Choros. After days of desert, the white sand beaches he found were a pleasant surprise, but the water was unreasonably frigid. It was just insanely cold, to the point that it seemed like the only animals that could enjoy it were sea lions, South American marine otters, and Peruvian diving petrels that the phantom sailors had taken to feeding on both islands.
For some reason, Coop found the incredibly cold water particularly offensive. Maybe it was because he hadn’t acclimated to anything outside of the warm water around his settlement, but running through the sand just wasn’t the same when his feet hit the icy sea and the waves chased him back up the beach. He did his best to enjoy it, forcing himself to get past the temperature, fully embracing the fact that mana would transform hypothermia into an easily managed debuff. Beneath the surface, he discovered a surprising number of shipwrecks hidden among forests of brown algae and a massive amount of mollusks braced against submerged rock walls.
According to his allies, Coop was moving two to three times faster than they could with their ships, even if his actual route was a bit back and forth. It seemed like he would make it in time to catch up with his advisors as long as he kept going, so he left the beaches and returned to the mainland to continue south.
Beyond the desert, the Andes continued. Coop moved up and down a diverse range of habitats that were shaped by elevation, latitude, and proximity to the Pacific Ocean. He defeated the Primal Constructs as they appeared, and acknowledged the leveled animals when he detected them.
The high-altitude grasslands and scrublands were cold and windy, providing a stark contrast to the rocky desert that had started his journey south, but they were both exceptionally dry places. Low-growing vegetation that had adapted to harsh conditions, like cushion plants and dwarf shrubs dominated the region. They all had adaptations to conserve water and resist strong winds, with waxy and often narrow leaves. The puna tinamou, a round little bird, seemed to dominate the ground while the Andean condors roamed the skies.
The lower slopes and valleys provided some particularly comfortable environments that demonstrated a large contrast from the harsh mountains. It was all very Mediterranean, with bunches of Chilean palms, vast espino trees shading flat grassy areas, and dense forest of soapbark on the slopes. It might have been the most pleasant climate he had experienced on the whole continent, though he personally preferred a more tropical atmosphere and especially warmer waters.
At different points of his journey, Coop had some curious wildlife scouting him as he explored, defeating every Primal Construct within his range. It reminded him of the army of curious monkeys in the Colombian rainforest. What he thought was a fox continued the trend of his misidentifications, revealing itself to be a level 400 culpeo making sure Coop didn’t try and claim its territory.
Above the valleys, in the higher elevations as he moved south, Coop crossed through Andean foothill forests, admiring the mix of evergreen and deciduous trees. In particular, the araucaria trees with strange succulent-like leaves left him with the impression that he might find some dinosaurs roaming the lands. Instead he spotted huemul deer and the occasional Andean mountain cat. As much as Coop wanted to catch and squeeze the small wild felines, even he knew better than to chase them down for his own amusement. They had such cute faces and fluffy tails, it took all of his self control to avoid interfering with their days.
Wetlands and lakes started to appear as he continued south and eventually gave way to glaciers and icefields. The first frozen landscapes really caused Coop to stop and take note. He had never seen anything like them before. Massive rivers of ice had gradually flowed downhill, carving out enormous valleys and leaving behind completely unique rock features and placid brightly colored lakes. Where the glaciers interconnected, they formed fields of ice that Coop couldn’t imagine traversing without the aid of mistjumping. The whole environment was like the complete opposite of the deserts Chile started with, and the fact that they shared a continent with the Pantanal or the Amazon left him in disbelief.
It was at the start of the more alpine environments that Coop finally spotted the mana signature of Punihuil with his Soul Shroud. He came down from the mountains, following glacial valleys filled with crystal blue water, surrounded by redwood-like Alerce trees. While Coop was observing trees that had grown beyond 1,000 feet tall and 50 feet in diameter, he noted more local fauna observing him with the type of curiosity that had been bolstered by mana.
Several different species of penguins were posted on low branches or in the hollows of the largest trees, sticking out like tuxedoed sore thumbs. They boasted levels that were comparable to the highest he had seen throughout Chile and Argentina, which he found surprising, given their initially clumsy appearances compared to many of the predators he had seen before. If he was a betting man, he would have put money on the clever seeming culpeo to dominate with levels, but it turned out to be the disarmingly cute, waddling birds. As he drew closer to the settlement, incorporating his unique item for guidance, the density of penguins notably increased.
Coop had this idea that penguins only lived on giant islands of ice, but he was spotting them in what he would have described as a cold rainforest. He had spent days being wrong about almost every animal, so he paid it no mind. He just kept his trek moving forward, identifying their auras as he went.
There were Chinstrap and Macaroni Penguins, Gentoo Penguins, Adelie Penguins, and even birds officially named Little Penguins which were exactly as cute as they sounded. Coop identified Rockhoppers, Magellanic, and Humboldt Penguins before he stopped and thought something might be wrong.
He had to ask himself if it made sense for so many different species of penguins to all live in the same place. Surely, the African Penguin that was hopping along behind him was in the wrong part of the world, right?
Hopefully, the locals wouldn’t mind his incessant questions about the local animals.
