After collecting the remains of the Hellasaurus, the employees of Dinotours Excursions put their attention on the CS APC that was disabled and abandoned. Socket put his considerable talents to good use and managed to rig a device to power the machine long enough to get it back 'home'. One it was in place, they saddled up and blazed a new path from the encampment right to the compound.
They barely recognized the place, since Kage and Lexington had spent the time that the others were away fixing the palisade and using Socket's Ferro-crete machine to make gravel 'roads' to the known attractions as well as new bungalows. It was obvious they had help since there was way more accomplished than the two of them alone could have been responsible for.
Ray attempted to scare Kage and Lexington using the rotten Hellasaurus head but didn't get much of a reaction. Kage was glad to see everyone because they were expecting a new group of tourists in a few short hours. Socket got busy overhauling the APC to determine what it needed while Ray went off to construct a display stand for the Hellasaurus and Butch with in conjunction with his large half dog half tiger companion continued to serve their primary function as compound security.
Once Ray had the Hellasaurus mounted, he went to check up on 'the neighbors'. When he arrived he discovered that two hatchlings were all that remained of the pack that he had been caring for for the better part of a month. He decided on the spot to try and smuggle them back into the camp and take care of them there.
Moments after Ray returned with his two charges concealed in his jacket, a group of three hover cycles and a large bus pulled down the new gravel driveway. Socket muttered something about having to do some more work on the APC and made himself scarce while Butch and Ray were asked by Kage to help settle the new tourists.
The bus backed up to the compound's entrance and a large door opened letting three men and a young woman exit. Immediately Ray began to welcome them while trying desperately to conceal the wriggling baby dinosaurs in his clothing. Thankfully there was so much to look at, that the tourists were mostly oblivious to the man's odd behavior. One of the tourists displayed a repugnant personality that rubbed everyone but Ray the wrong way since he was mostly oblivious to appropriate social norms, while the other two established themselves as a big game hunter and his man servant. In the middle of his welcome speech, Ray remembered there was a camera on the raptor nest and that he could use that to find out what happened to the pack, but then just as quickly as he made the revelation, he moved on and forgot about it. After the initial shock wore off Kage and Anton returned from the office and Anton appeared to point out one tourist in particular to Kage. Ray lead every one off to their lodging and that evening they all dined together and got to know one another.
The following day, Mr. Rigis and Jeeves went with Butch off to the North to try and find an Allosaurus to hunt, while Ray and Socket took Gi'Laduche and Jenny on a tour to see the Stegosaurus. Butch met with decent success but failed to find anything really big but Rigis was happy enough hunting a Dilophosaurus. Meanwhile Ray and Socket had to expertly fend off a massive prehistoric Crocodile called Sarcosuchus and make it look like it was all in a day's work. Ray had to hold Gi'Ladouche back from a suicidal plunge toward the giant monster, proving the overly arrogant Gi'Ladouche had more ego and bravado than he did brains.
The following day, everyone wanted to go see the Kopar and the 'Bone heads' so they all piled into the Cadillac hovercraft and headed toward the enclosure. On the way there Gi'Ladouche managed to annoy everyone in the car other than Ray, who maintained he was a cool guy. The situation likely would have lead to a fist fight but Ray gave Gi'Ladouchea bit of a psychic boost which provide him with just enough introspection that he actually apologized to Mr. Rigis prompting Jenny, Gi'Ladouche's wife, to stare slack-jawed at Gi'Ladouche for a good 15 minutes since she obviously had never seen him the least bit self aware.
When they arrived Gi'Ladouche continued to annoy everyone but this time his antics almost caused a dangerous situation as he got very close to the edge oft he viewing area and was being so loud and obnoxious that the dinosaurs took notice of the group and appeared to be trying to find ways to get around the minimal 'enclosure' that Dinotours had built. Ray interjected again and decided to remove himself and Gi'Ladouche from the equation and took him north to the lake to 'Grenade fish'.
While the rest of the Dinotours crew showed Mr. Rigis, Jeeves and Jenny some other interesting Dinosaurswap features, Ray spent the better part of an hour scrambling to keep the almost too dumb to live Gi'Ladouche alive. It started with Gi'Ladouche almost blowing both of them to bits with a grenade and then culminated with an impromptu alligator wrestling match. Gi'Ladouche proved to be incapable of doing the simplest of tasks and Ray surprisingly (or not) never got frustrated with him once.
After their adventure at the lake, Ray and Gi'Ladouche joined back up with everyone else as they headed to visit the Kopar city. When they arrived, Gi'Ladouche was playing a hand held video game and Ray made him pinky swear that he would keep it in his pocket while they were visiting with the Kopar, since Golden age tech was shunned there. After some coercion, Gi'Ladouche agreed and they headed inside.
Once inside everyone was on their best behavior until Gi'Ladouche got board and took out his game and started playing it. This made agitated and insulted the Kopar and Ray promptly destroyed the device and then while attempting to explain his reasoning to an indignant Gi'Ladouche, almost broke Gi'Ladouche's pinky finger off. Socket was alarmed by this and used his abilities to treat the wound, which turned out to be a seriously nasty sprain instead of a break, and then the whole group made haste back to the 'car'.
The evening, Kage explained to Ray that he can't do things like that and should never hurt the guests. Ray later apologized to Jenny who revealed that she did not necessarily like her life and that she was some how married to Gi'Ladouche via an arraignment between two powerful families. Everyone went to bed and then the following morning woke to find a rather awful surprise.
Some time during the night, Gi'Ladouche ended up face first in the Lankton's knot that they had planted and carefully cultivated as a means of showing tourists the dangerous plants int he area. Lexington started to freak out and woke all the 'employees' up at Kage's request. While they stood there trying to figure out what to do, Butch thought quicker than the others and put a plan into action. He had Lexington go steal Mr. Rigis's hunting rifle and then pitched it into the wilderness. He then told everyone to tell the same story that at some point in the night, Gi'Ladouche must have sneaked in and stole Mr. Rigis's gun to go hunt because he did not want to be shown up by the old man. It sounded like an amazingly plausible story and the only problem they had now was the body. While they were trying to figure out what to do with it, Ray simply went dragon form and ate it. This horrified Kage and he said that he and Ray would have along talk later about why that was wrong but by that point, the guests were starting to wake up.
ReplyDeleteRays disappointment at not getting a better jump out of people with his 'gottle of geer' act on the Hellasaur head led to his distracting himself for a bit assembling the display frame out of old girders before he remembered (belatedly) his nearby pack and hastened off to see to them, stopping on the way to batter some poor, unsuspecting piece of wildlife unconscious in order to feed them once he got there.
In Rays defence, at the time he forgot about the camera he did have a hatchling tiger claw raptor attempting to bite one of his nipples off while he gave a speech about why you definitely shouldn't proke those plants, not even that one there because it would make you fall asleep and then it would eat you. On the other hand, everyone was very happy when Mr LaDuche sniffed the plant and it all became very peaceful.
The psychic boost was something Ray usually saves for himself when he needs to think really, really hard about something but it seemed the best thing to do under the circumstances and Kage hasn't told him not to do *that* to people yet. Not like the other thing.
The grenade fishing could have gone better, it has to be admitted. Starting with Mr LaDuche fumbling the grenade and Ray pitching him into the water so as to avoid being blown up (like Ray's clothing mostly was), LaDuche had to then be rescued from the riled-up alligator who fastened onto the hastily swimming Ray instead - fortunately, Ray mostly managed to keep the thing from gnawing on him by holding its jaws open as he helpfully shouted advice to LaDuche like 'jump on its back and grab it!' (thinking that this would make him feel more excited and manly). LaDuche of course knocked himself out headbutting the alligator, then fell in the water prompting Ray to turn back into a dragon while holding the alligator, who looked at the dragon, who looked back before the gator went ballistic and started chomping on Ray's finger, panicking the young dragon into running in a small circle (narrowly missing LaDuche) and flailing his foreclaw until he stunned the gator by slamming it into the bank. Turning human once more, he rescued LaDuche and brought him around, successfully convincing him that he'd knocked out the alligator with his headbutt. Subsequent efforts by LaDuche to shoot the unconscious reptile on the ground four feet away caused enough noise to bring it around and it sloped off, looking sheepish while attempts were made to reload the gun.
The 'coercion' consisted of using the initial pinky swear to back LaDuche down to one knee, bent over backwards until he uncrossed his fingers. Ray takes promises very, very seriously it seems.
Ray destroyed the game with his pinky. His Pinky. While coldly and rather disconcertingly explaining that 'one does not break a pinky swear' and flatly ignoring the punch to the jaw LaDuche offered as a counter-argument. After that, the crunching 'snap' of the actual punishment was almost an afterthought.
Ray did apparently feel very bad about having disappointed Kage, even though he repeatedly pointed out that that's just what you *do* when someone breaks a pinky swear and this led to the brief, heartfelt apology and conversation with Jenny.
It does perhaps bear pointing out that Ray was asked to dispose of the body quickly and seemed very put off by the taste despite essentially swallowing it whole and when told that this was bad, pointed out plaintively that he hadn't hurt anyone and LaDuche 'wasn't using it anymore'. This will probably have to be discussed at a later date.