It's dino time!
Last time, our heroes killed some giant spiders and discovered the corpses of a SATI team. Tallahassee and Omaha, both still kinda high, start investigating said corpses. Tallahassee goes looking for cybernetics, but gets distracted by her own eyelids. Omaha kinda nudges her out of the way and brings her knowledge of medicine and science to bear, and discovers a few interesting facts.
First, these people haven't been eating Cretaceous-grown food. They've got some cybernetics, but they're minor (eye implants to improve night vision, joint enhancement to improve stamina and speed, that kind of thing). They've got two chips implanted. One is an RFID chip in the palm, which Omaha figures is used for access to a lock or a door or something. The other is a smaller chip at the base of the skull, and she isn't sure about that one. Biometrics, maybe? Tracking?
She also finds a small plastic card with a set of coordinates on it, and hands it to Buffalo, he being the orienteering expert. Buffalo works out the coordinates and realizes that they correspond to the Enta Lab in Kelaino - which is where he stole the mysterious genetically engineered dinosaur egg that's currently in his pack. He tries to tuck the card away surreptitiously, but Tallahassee notices and asks him what it is. Buffalo is not the most skilled social person at the best of times, and kind of hems and haws around the issue before admitting that coordinates lead to a lab.
Omaha and Tallahassee, of course, both being of a scientific bent, are very keen to look into this more. Buffalo, not really wanting to but not wanting to abandon these folks either, plots a course. If they head west they'll leave the Gridelin Wilds, and then north will take them through the forest to the river, across which is Kelaino.
They group heads off through the Wilds, and Buffalo notices anzu tracks. He figures it's a small flock of them, and they must have developed an immunity to the toxic dust here. Anzus are known to be territorial, so he warns the others to stay quiet and careful, and they'll try and avoid notice. But "avoiding notice" is difficult with an albertasaurus, and soon they begin to hear clicks and whistles as the anzus surround them. Buffalo therefore revises his advice to: "Run."
The group strikes out through the forest, Sebie and Kevin easily outpacing the anzu. Klio isn't terribly fast, but he's steady, and the anzus don't bother him. They nip at Betty's heels a little, but generally they just want to run these folks off, which, conveniently, is what the characters want, too. They break out of the Wilds and into the cleaner and greener forests.
Exhausted, the characters set up camp and rest for the night. Tallahassee takes the opportunity to look at one of the chips from the skulls of the SATI team, and realizes that it shouldn't exist. It looks like first-generation SATI tech, insofar as the materials and craftsmanship, but it's new. That all seems to support the theory that these guys actually were time travelers. She slots the chip in her own cybernetics, but doesn't get any real read on it - whatever it's meant to do, it's not doing it.
In the morning, the crew wakes up and gets moving. As they head north toward the river, a nerezza (a black, winged microraptor bred to be a spy and assassin) swoops in and lands on Betty's nose. She shakes it off (and Sebie snaps at it), but it flies around and lands on a branch, watching the characters. Buffalo realizes that it's got to be someone's pet or companion, and Omaha suggests they follow it. It leads them to the river, and they hear someone yelling for help. A man is sitting on the beach in a small hollow, surrounding by a crackling sphere of electricity. Dakota yells down and asks what he needs help with, just as the back of a carnosuchus becomes visible in the water. "That!" he responds.
Dakota ties a rope to Klio and tosses the end down to him. She counts down from three, and the man switches off the artifact protecting him and grabs the rope. Dakota tries to have Klio back up, but Klio's tail gets caught on a tree and he stumbles, making the rope go slack. The carno lurches up out of the water and bites the guy's foot.
The characters spring into action! Tallahassee, riding Kevin, fires her laser pistol at the carno...and misses. Omaha activates a cipher and fires it at the carno...and misses. It ploops into the water, and Omaha winces; that thing is going to rearrange the matter it comes into contact with. Dakota hurls a cipher of her own, a magnetic drill that burrows into the carno, and Kevin throws Tallahassee off and rushes the creature. Buffalo runs down the beach and takes a prybar to the carno's mouth, freeing the man, but the carno just turns and bites into Buffalo's leg.
Omaha switches to a laser pistol and tries to shoot it, but misses again...and strikes a blob of matter that just surfaced behind the creature. The blob pops, spewing yellow particulates into the air, and Dakota and Tallahassee start choking. Buffalo pries open the thing's jaws again, and Sebie claws at it. Having had enough, the carno backs up into the water and swims away.
The characters catch their breath and Omaha and Dakota break out medkits. Dakota patches up the stranger, who introduces himself as Hayzus (and his nerezza, Petey). He says that he was fishing and misjudged the location of a tidepool that the carnos avoid, and got trapped by the device that was protecting him. He thanks the characters and offers to walk with them to the bridge to Kelaino.
They chat as they walk - Hayzus tells them that he won Petey as a chick in a poker game with some swell from the Triangle of Faith, which makes Buffalo growl a bit. As they get near the bridge, Buffalo waits until Hayzus goes off for a piss and then tells the others the truth - he stole an egg from the Enta lab. He shows them - it's bigger than a lot of dino eggs, and harder shelled. Omaha immediately puts her ear to it to try and hear the baby inside, and Tallahassee asks what it is, but Buffalo doesn't know. All he knows is that it was genetically engineered and it shouldn't exist.
The characters are so taken with the egg that they don't notice Hayzus walking back. He comments on the egg, and then says his goodbyes and thanks them again, and starts heading back down to the river to catch his boat across to the docks. The others watch him go, and Tallahassee wonders if he might try to turn Buffalo in, since he stole that egg. This, says Buffalo, is one reason he doesn't want to go into the city.
As they're talking, they notice thunder rumbling and the temperature going up. Tallahassee knows what this means - there's a time terror incoming. She activates a cipher and measures it as a level 4; strong, but not too difficult to survive. Buffalo has them head towards the bridge, which will have some lightning rods that will hopefully catch the worst of the storm. As they get there, they see a man standing near a triceratops with "Kelaino: Arrive. Survive. Thrive." written in blue on its side.
Tallahassee and Buffalo recognize this; the guy is a roadknight, paid to entice people to move to or visit Kelaino. They warn him there's a time terror coming, and he tells them that Kelaino offers excellent protection against such things, as well as supplies and lodging for them and their companions. As the storm rolls in, however, he crawls under the trike (whom he calls "Stubby") and takes cover. The characters do likewise.
Tallahassee, however, feels the chip she slotted activate, and a voice in her head says "Identify yourself." She does, and it asks how she got the chip. She briefly explains ("the guy is dead, there were spiders"), and the voice asks the year. She tells it, and then it asks for her current coordinates.
Tallahassee asks who she's talking to and what year it is there, but it doesn't answer, instead just repeating the demand for coordinates. She asks why, and it says something about needing to recalibrate, but then the storm passes and the voice goes silent. A cipher hits her in the head, and the characters look around and find a few more. Tallahassee notes that if she could find another time terror, she might be able to reactivate the chip and talk to these mysterious people again. But maybe not right now.
The characters decide to split up. Tallahassee and Dakota (and their companions) will go into Kelaino and investigate the lab, and perhaps the Market District. Omaha and Buffalo, who aren't as interested in cities and have much larger dinosaurs, will do some looking around out here in the woods.
