ruffled feather

i thought this trip back to drumheller was supposed to be fun!?!

over the last little while it has taken a few dark dark turns... whether it be someone stealing fossils, a break into the tyrrell museum's collections, coming under attack by a pack of raptors, and getting in trouble from professor paradigm... the fun of the trip has departed.

just when things couldn't seem to get any crazier, today as i was checking my eee-mail i got the most puzzling (and worrying) instant message.

instantly i knew it could only mean trouble, because whoever was trying to talk to me had this symbol as their icon... this was the seal of the pack of the primordial feather, the very same group of dinosaurs who'd just tried to kill by velociraptor (and several other species of raptor)!!!
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before i could react and close the window, thinking the pack was simply trying to cyber stalk me, suddenly the window chirped as whoever was on the other end sent me a message.

Traumador the Tyrannosaur, your current actions have put you in grave danger!

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thank you captain obvious of the noticing things league!

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uh thanks for the heads up, but i kinda noticed when you sent the crimson talons to come and kill me!

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these were pretty sad scare tactics i thought. maybe the pack should just stick to sending killer theropods to try and get me.

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The pack hasn't gotten started yet, I assure you. Unless you hurry up in your efforts to hinder the Pack of the Primordial Feather's current plans they'll send a lot more than the Crimson Talons!

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I offer you information that could help.

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right "information", which would what, led me into a new trap.

sure you do... do you really think i'm THAT stupid!

who is this exactly?!?

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actually it doesn't matter.

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just tell my cousin to leave me alone, and that you should quit you're little operation in drumheller. i know what you're doing, and if you don't stop i'm going to make sure professor paradigm and palaeo-central shuts it down!

okay so that last part was a lie. paradigm had in fact told me if i didn't leave the whole pack and poached fossil thing alone he'd personally see to it that something bad happened to me (my guess was the theropod killing lance the lambeosaur and sternberg styracosaur would be involved).

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i however was not wanting to give the impression i was on my own, and thus weak. otherwise the crimson talons might try another jurassic park re-enactment on me.

Of course I know, that you know! Why else would I contact you?!?

It is all the pack's matriarchs can talk about at moment. You have the pack worried, and it is about time someone did!

As for who I am, that is not important.

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Let us just say you have friends inside the pack. Not all of us willingly joined. However most do not have your bravery when it came to saying no to the offer.

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You just saw the other day what can happen to those who oppose the pack's will... Yet you have faced it and prevailed. I was beginning to wonder if you were worthy of seeking out.

this sounded to good to be true.

if this is true then i'd very much like to know who you are!

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i'm not risking another pack trap...


I can understand you're concern, but understand mine. If I am discovered, I am dead. The royals would execute me on the spot!

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You have become a very taboo subject within the pack. Anyone caught even sympathizing with you, that alone directly helping you, is getting harshly disciplined!

So you will either have to trust me based on what I have just told you, or be on your own!

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i almost felt bad about being so distrusting, considering the risks this dinosaur was taking in trying to help me. that is if they were being truthful.

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it was just as easy to make up a story like this and try and lull me into a false sense of security.

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alright let's say i buy this story of yours for now.

what can i at least call you?


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i still wanted something to identify this dinosaur as.

For now you can call me Ruffled Feather.






alright ruffled feather.

why are you helping me, and not say paradigm?



You and I have a united enemy, that Paradigm does not share. The Primordials are very much an equal threat to both of our freedoms. Something the Professor will never have to worry about.

Besides the "good" doctor has a reputation, you may have encountered, of having as self serving of motives as the Pack's.

I can't trust him to act against the pack in a way that benefits me (and by extension you) as much as another coelurosaur. As one of the only successful dissenters you're among my only hopes. Especially as you're the only none loyalist anywhere near the Tyrrell!

okay that sounded fair enough. i had been finding the professor was very cagey about everything, and never up front.

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that STILL didn't mean i should trust this ruffled feather... which i guess was the point. no matter what questions i asked on my part or answers they gave on theirs, i was not going to be able to be completely sure.

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interrupting this ongoing concern on my part suddenly ruffled feather messaged me...

Oh no! I think someone is coming towards me!

There isn't much time...

Keep probing as you have been.

what am i looking for exactly?




i asked. though i knew the pack was stealing fossils, i didn't know what kinds or more to the point why?

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What do you mean?

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You do know what they are doing at the museum right?

How could you not, as they've stolen something very dear to you all in drumheller, especially yourself. It is...

ruffled feathers suddenly cut off and was displayed as offline. i frantically typed a few messages hoping there'd just been a hick up in the innerweb. no good. ruffled feather had shut off their end of the conversation.

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whether it was due to being discovered or simply to make the charade the pack had just played on me seem more real, ruffled feather was gone...

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yet thinking about what had just been said, i started to realize there wasn't much danger in what i'd just been told. this couldn't have been a set up for a trap. other then perhaps telling me to look into events as a whole, there were no specifics (times or locations) that could be a trick.

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besides the crimson talons had attacked me at a random moment. we weren't closing on them stealing fossils. heck we weren't even in the field. what was stopping them from attacking me whilst i chilled out for the rest of my trip as paradigm had told me too?

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no, there was something to this ruffled feathers that made me want to trust them. if even just about the part of me upsetting the pack.

the question was how had i done that?

that only clue ruffled feather had managed to tell me before being cut off though was "they've stolen something very dear to you all in drumheller, especially yourself." what could that possibly be?

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as far as i could tell everything that they'd stolen was so far undiscovered, especially by me! how could the area, and i for that matter, hold something dear of we hadn't known of its existence...

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i guess ruffled feather was speaking of the right of us all to know about fossils, which was something i did real hold dear. i think no one should be allowed to own fossils, but rather that we should all have a right to see and learn from them, but sadly not everyone else feels this way.

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fortunantely here in alberta the law supports my feelings here. so if i could catch the pack stealing fossils, i'd get them in a LOT of trouble!!!

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so i needed to review what i knew to start hunting them down (in a sense)!

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i found the first poached quarry was while searching for the lost quarrys of francis slate.

the biggest find at this site we'd made here was that the poachers had abandoned a lot of substandard equipment. this indicated to us (tony, myself, and yumi) that this was the FIRST poached site of them all. the poachers found some of their gear to be faulty and discarded it. afterall why would they realize this during a later dig and not their first?

there'd been a lot of quarry pits scattered around the dump spot (probably their camp for a week based on the trash left in the otherwise lovely badlands). it was hard to tell which were test digs (to check out their equipment performance) and which were to take out fossils.

these dig pits varied in size from small little meter by meter holes in the hill, to one that was huge. this singular giant dig site was big enough for a full grown hadrosaur or tyrannosaurid at about 11 or 12 meters long and 4 meters wide.

the second poaching i'd found was a few smaller pits. this looked like a days worth of work by the poachers. if i had to guess these were just to test their replacement equipment. which now seemed to be working fine.

the third site was much more likely to be the real target of the pack's efforts. as just like the first site this one had a very large single quarry pit.

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however unlike the first, this one was bigger then any single dinosaur ever found in alberta! though this implied an exciting discovery, it was also a little worrying that it had been nabbed away before scientists could look at it!

then the strangest act of all on the part of the poachers. they had broken into the museum's geology collections and ransacked the drawers with the specimens of horseshoe canyon formation rocks.

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i can only assume they were looking for clues in these sample rocks to try and find more of whatever they were poaching. sadly before i could try and find clues as to what, i was interupted and kicked out of the "crime" scene...

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so in the end i don't know a whole lot other then the pack is digging for some sort of fossil (based on the tools and materials getting left at the sites).

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i'm thinking the large pits at sites 1 and 3 are the key clues. if i can figure out what the primordials dug up there, then i stand a better chance to expose what they are doing, and more importantly try and recover the fossils they are stealing!

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to be continued