Companions & Taming
"Livestock deployed in a combat capacity remains the deploying runner's responsibility. The Network does not insure morale."
Floor 1 let you practise looking after something, cheaply: a rat, a show cage, a name, a little vest. Floor 2 puts something at stake. A caught Greenbelt animal can be tamed into a working field companion — one that scouts, forages, sustains, or fights — and a working companion is a living thing you can lose. That's the system. The Network green-lit it the moment someone said "lose" out loud.
Catching one (the same as Floor 1)
Snare a wild animal → it's held → use a cage on it → you're carrying a Caged Specimen, labelled with its species, what it's good at, how dangerous it was, and how fine a specimen you got. The cage is a real item you can trade: runners who don't train Survival buy their companions, and runners who do sell them.
Your Survival level decides what you can catch — not what you can tame. Rats and their like from Level 1. The floor's scouts, foragers and half-grown predators need Live Catch, at Survival 10. The full-grown predators need Apex Catch, at Survival 30 — which is inside what a runner can train on this floor, if they spend the time on it.
Try for something bigger than your snare can hold and it will usually get out. Or it won't get out, exactly. See the Lurker.
Taming — three ways, one bond
Taming uses up the cage. You stand still, feed and calm the animal, and it costs charge when it takes. Anyone can tame — no skill required — by one of three routes:
| How | Where | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Out in the open | Anywhere, including Sanctuary | Always available and always the worst deal: a full minute of standing still, and 3× Janitech Pet Chow. |
| At the pen | The paddock at the Groundskeeper's Yard | Where you should learn, and the sensible default: 4 seconds and 1× Pet Chow. The Naturalist works the pen. |
| In the field | Anywhere, with Tame Mastery (Survival 40) | What the specialist gets for the training: 3 seconds, no chow. |
Docile animals always take to you. Fighters and full-grown predators can refuse — they get a say, and a tamer without Survival training can be turned down. A refusal still eats the feed; the animal keeps its opinion. Bring a friend who trains Survival, or bring more chow.
One-way permanence, stated plainly: a fresh catch is tradeable; a bonded companion never melts back into one. Stowing a tamed animal in its cage is routine and reversible. Un-taming it is not a thing, and never will be.
One active slot — droid or animal
A runner fields one active companion. The Cyber runner's droid and the tamed animal share that single slot — pick your philosophy. You can carry a whole caged menagerie and warm-swap which one is deployed; equipping the droid, swapping manually, or your companion going down each stow the active one back to its cage in your pack. Skill raises companion quality, never quantity. One leash. The Network was firm.
Orders and instinct
Animals take standing orders, not commands — no techniques to play, no gear to carry, far less fussing than the droid. You start with follow / guard / hold; engage opens at Survival 50 and stand-down at Survival 75. Inside whatever order you've given, the animal does what its kind does: the fighter goes for threats near you, the scout sniffs out loot, the forager gathers. If you go down, any companion drops into bodyguard sentinel — defensive only, standing over you, contesting nothing.
Leveling
Companions level up by being there — kills made near your deployed animal, and its own kills, both feed it. Each level adds health, up to a ceiling that was fixed the moment you caught it: a half-grown predator will never get as tough as one you caught full-grown. Your own Survival training raises that ceiling, but only for animals you tamed yourself — Tame Mastery (Survival 40) and Pack Bond (Survival 60) each lift it. What the animal is good at improves gently as it levels: the healer heals a little more, the scout finds things a little faster.
Down → cage → revive
A companion that drops in the field is not dead. It collapses into a downed-companion cage in your inventory — full bond intact — and a window opens (a generous forty minutes). Two ways out of it:
- Universal: carry the cage to any pen and revive there. Instant, free, wakes at quarter health. The trek is the cost, and the trek across this floor is a real cost.
- Beast Whisperer (Survival L80): revive in the field — a 5-second channel and 40 Mana. The convenience the specialist paid eighty levels for.
Let the window lapse and the companion is gone — for the descent, which for a companion means forever. The Reference records that the broadcast log marks the moment with a memorial line. The Reference does not record who requested that feature. Everyone requested that feature.
Housing — the show cage and the kennel
Between deployments, a companion lives at home. Small animals — which is most of the roster — live in the Sanctuary show cage, the same fixture the Floor 1 rat taught you to keep: name it, dress it, feed it, and note that the installed pet is party-bound and outlives you, while the deployed companion is yours and doesn't. That contrast is the whole bet, every time you clip the leash on.
Large animals — the Hollowback, notably — don't fit the show cage. They need the Kennel, a buildable station in your growing home's kennel nook. One kennel, one large occupant. Runners planning to end the floor's marquee boss event with a cage are advised to pour the foundation first.
Next → Gathering — the floor provides, on a cooldown.