Dinosaur vs. giant death-pig! This Friday on Syfy.
Last time, the characters tore up a SATI lab and escaped into the wilds. Buffalo finds them a safe place halfway up a hill and hidden by foliage, and they camp for the night. Betty and Omaha sleep outside, however (Betty's too big and Omaha doesn't want to be without her).
In the morning, Betty wanders over to the tree and sticks her snoot into the underbrush, snuffling at something. Omaha asks what she found, and then what she found makes itself known - a ghasthound.
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| Eep. |
Omaha tells Betty to back up, but then a man emerges and tells the death-pig to calm down. He introduces himself as Galveston, and the ghasthound as Penny. He tells Omaha that he has some eggs he found and he's happy to share them with her (and her friends, since she cheerfully explains that there are a bunch more people hiding nearby), since he wouldn't be able to eat them all before they spoiled. Omaha goes and wakes everyone else up, and they head outside to see Galveston building a fire.
Buffalo is naturally suspicious, particularly since ghasthounds aren't exactly trainable, but his observation of Penny shows that she's not as aggressive as is typical of her species, and she's well-trained. The tusks on the front of her head are also filed down, presumably to stop her goring people. Buffalo also notes that the eggs Galveston is cooking up are probably from an herbivore common to the river area, so it's conceivable that he found a nest today or yesterday. Galveston scrambles up the eggs and the characters dig in (except Buffalo, who's vegan).
Galveston sees Tallahassee fiddling with her implants and asks about the process of getting them - his knee was injured by a dinosaur some time back and it aches in humidity now. She looks at the injury and says that he'd be better off getting the knee or the leg replaced, and briefly considers giving him a cypher she's carrying that would heal it, but holds onto it for now.
Sebie, meanwhile, sneaks up and steals one of the packs Galveston is carrying. Penny notices this as the dakotaraptor sneaks away and charges, knocking the bag out of her mouth. Dakota calls Sebie off and Galveston calms Penny down, but a metal sphere rolls out of the bag and hits a root...and produces a hologram of Dakota.
Dakota goes over and picks it up and reactivates it, and it shows the hologram of her again. A text crawl says "DAKOTA RUSHMORE...WANTED BY SATI...TRAVELS WITH DAKOTARAPTOR...1 SATI TOKEN". A moment later she disappears and similar information about Tallahassee comes up.
They all turn to Galveston, who raises his hands and stays very polite (but does whistle for Penny to come to him). He says that yes, he's a bounty hunter, it's just a job, and he's not interested in trying to fight them all, so how about they just give him back his sphere and call it a day? Tallahassee examines the sphere and realizes it's basically a receiver for jobs; it would update automatically if taken close to a bigger town with a transmitter (like Kelaino). She doesn't want to give it back, and calls Buffalo over to confer. She considers offering Galveston the aforementioned cypher to "forget" that he saw them, but Buffalo doesn't think he can be trusted.
And then, Kevin realizes that someone is nearby in the trees watching them and scampers off to investigate/murder it. Tallahassee is distracted, and Galveston gives Penny a command. She charges at Tallahassee, but she dodges and Penny slams into a tree. Buffalo quickly uses his skills to soothe Penny and keep her from attacking, while Sebie leaps at Galveston. Galveston, however, throws a handful of powder in Sebie's face and she collapses.
Dakota screams "Sebie!" and shoots Galveston with her laser pistol. It hits him in the chest and he curses and runs off into the brush. Omaha follows, thinking she'll track him, and then remembers once she gets into the brush that she's not Buffalo and has no idea how to track.
Meanwhile, Kevin finds the interloper - a woman in a tree, watching them. He jumps up and pulls her down, and starts snapping at her as Tallahassee runs up. Assuming this woman is with Galveston, she sculpts Kevin's claws and fangs to make the bigger, and Kevin bites the woman on the arm and wounds her. Tallahassee tries to get information out of her, but she becomes a bit hysterical and only says "stay on the path" over and over again.
Dakota and Buffalo go to tend to Sebie; Buffalo determines that she's been drugged with the same spores they encounters in the Gridelin Wilds, but concentrated and processed (and she'll be fine in a few minutes). Betty goes loping after Omaha, but Omaha very nearly gets a face-full of spores herself. She manages to hold her breath just in time, though, and swings her staff at Galveston. "I liked you!"
Galveston blocks the shot, and Penny emerges from the brush, but Betty steps up behind Omaha. This isn't a fight anyone wants, so Galveston leaves, saying "be seeing you."
Tallahassee pulls Kevin off the woman and her pet bambiraptor (Chitter) starts licking at her wounds. Now feeling bad, Tallahassee asks what she and her buddy want, but the woman has no idea who she meant ("whoops!"). The woman, Tentra, says that she was looking for Tallahassee and Dakota, because of what they did in Kelaino. She reveals a butterfly emblem on the sole of her boot - she's one of the Butterflies, an anti-SATI guerrilla organization.
She offers the characters sanctuary, and assistance if they're going after SATI some more. The characters talk it over, and with the exception of Buffalo, they're all for a little help, especially at staying out of sight. They follow Tentra west, towards the mountains. On the way, Tallahassee fiddles with the sphere and finds that SATI is claiming they trashed a lab, destroyed tech, and killed a guard - only two of those things are true.
Some hours later, Tentra tells them that the "safe house" is near, but she needs to go check and make sure all is cool.
All is not cool. She returns and reveals that she really shouldn't have brought them here (this is, like, their main hidden base). She offers to take them elsewhere, or to talk to the "Queen" about them, but that'll take some time. Tallahassee gives her one of the chips from the dead dude's heads and tells her that folks seem to have time-traveled back here, if that'll grease the wheels any.
Tentra leaves, and the characters make camp. That night, a bunch of Butterflies approach, and a man tells them that they can enter the Chrysalis, but they'll need to be blindfolded and need to leave their dinosaurs out here. Omaha and Buffalo decline, but Tallahassee and Dakota agree, and they are blindfolded and taken behind a heavy door, underground.
Buffalo, meanwhile, tells Kevin to go hunt, knowing that he'll probably go after Tallahassee. Next time, we'll see what mischief results.
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