a hallow victory

after everything i'd gone through, i'd finally reached the pack of the primordial feather's precious crate.

caleb and kirsten had done an amazing job distracting the crimson talons, which gave me and carmen a chance to sneak to the crate without incident. as an aside who knew that universities had some many tunnels running through the bottom of them? it made bypassing the pack a snap.

emerging in the store room... funnily enough it was the ONLY room i hadn't already seen in the whole geology collections!... i finally set eyes upon the wooden box that had been causing so much trouble.

it looked harmless enough, and for a brief moment i thought maybe ruffled feather had been wrong about the threat it represented. then it hit me. the smell from the box... i knew that scent well! almost as well as my own.

carmen didn't notice my hesitation and marched towards the crate, and finding a easy to release latch opened the lid. "oh my," she murmered softly, in shock at what she saw.

i already knew what was inside, yet i had to make sure i wasn't somehow mistaken. oh how i wanted to be wrong! i let out a howl of dispair when i had my confirmation.

we sat there a good two or three minutes both just staring at the crate, though to me it felt like years or centuries. my brain was numb with anger and depression. how could the pack have done this? how?!? they truly were monsters...


even carmen, who didn't know the full extent of what she'd just seen picked up on the scope of the crate's cargo. "this is a mistake right?" she looked to me desperately. "i mean that could just be a decoy or extra security? the real artifact is another of these boxes."

i just shock my head. carmen may not have recognized the contents, but i certainly did. there was no way it was a mistake. it was exactly what the pack had wanted in the box, and i knew why.

i explained to her as best i could through howls of sadness (a theropod's version of crying) what this cargo was, and what it represented. she looked helplessly at the crate. when i'd finished my tale of woe carmen offered. "we could take it out of the crate, and then destroy the box. hopefully the pack would think we'd destroyed..."

i cut her off. "we don't have time carmen," i stated coldly. my rage at the pack was tapping into my surpressed tyrannosaurus instincts. "besides, it's in no condition to be taken out of the box."
"what do you do then?" carmen asked.

"nothing," i could only defeatedly admit. the pack had won. we couldn't wheel the crate out of here. i could smell theropods still out in the hallway (the daspletosaurus in particular). we certainly couldn't destroy the crate's contents, for we'd be as bad if not worse then the pack... which meant we could only leave the crate in the pack's claws. which was the worst outcome of all!

suddenly carmen lunged for a clipboard. "not on my watch!!!" carmen declared. she started madly writing away on a form. i was starting to feel ill from my crate discovery to clue into what she was doing, till near the end of the form she asked me. "what's the address of that museum you work for?"

i told her, now snapped out of my defeated daze. what on earth did she want to know that for?

"there, done!" she stated with a final scribbling of her signature.

"done what?" i asked dumbfoundedly.

"a two zero one transfer form," carmen proudly informed me. i just blinked stupidly. "the pack was able to sneak this into here by logging it as an offical addition to our collections. well if it is in my collections, than it is up to me to have the final say on where any item goes. as of such i just override their request to ship it back to their home office, and am now sending it to you in new zealand."

i said nothing, but instead lept onto carmen with a furious hug. "calm down. calm down," carmen insisted. "just don't ever underestimate the power of collections!" she winked.

for a moment i was overwhelmed with absolute joy. we'd won the day, and more to the point dealt a serious blow to the pack. however facing the crate again, my momentary celebration fell on its face. the contents of that crate were by far one of the evilest things i'd ever seen anyone (human or dinosaur) do in my personal life...

i had a realization in that moment too. carmen was sending this to me in new zealand... that meant when i got home, suddenly i would be the one responsible to safeguarding the contents of the crate. was i up to that task? could i really survive having to face it all everyday for the rest of my life?

(From the reflections of Desdemona Deinonychus, Crimson Talon and Pack Matriarch of the Pack of the Primordial Feather)

A mournful Royal* howl echoes down the hall. Indicating my plan has come full circle, and been a success.

*[Tyrannosaurid... in this case Traumador]

The Runt** has clearly discovered Razi [Saurornithoides]'s little project. Oh how I wish I could watch his spirits utterly collapse upon discovering that which we have stolen from him. Alas sometimes the greatest predator is that which is unseen.

**[Traumador]

Victory is truly mine!

Had Layla [Oviraptor] not been such an arrogant fool, it would not have been possible. Yet she could not resist in trying to act superior to us true hunters, and give us conflicting and completely inexperienced orders. My Crimson Talons were confused before the battle even began, let alone after Valour [Velociraptor] skillfully muddied the waters.

In the wake of us losing the crate, it will quickly become apparent it was Layla's incompetent leadership that cost us this victory. At the same time my protests throughout this operation will have to be acknowledged, and reveal me to be a far more competent commander than Layla. It shall be my pride and me who ascends within the Pack from the crate now, and not that scheming scavenger!

To think I have the Runt to thank for it all. Not that I haven't left him with a memento of my appreciation!

to be concluded with a phone call

danger in the air...

the pack of the primordial feather was based in the university of calgary, and they'd hidden the mysterious crate 14 somewhere in the geology collections.

for the first time in my life, i was living up to my predatory pedigree. i was the hunter, and the pack the prey.

though to be fair i was needing help... the universities collections manager was taking me deep into her treasure trove, so i could get the drop on the primordials.

as we were walking to check out the more remote corners of the universities bowels, i was busy trying to explain to carmen what i knew about the pack and their crate. which hearing myself say it out loud, wasn't a lot on either. in fact i could easily see how she was thinking i was crazy or over actively imaginative.

"so you're telling me all the meat eaters of the world have formed on big giant gang?" carmen asked me. i was going to correct her, and clarify it was just the coelurosaurs. who are as a whole more omnivorous (only the more famous branches are purely meat eating). however i choose not to for simplicity.

carmen still didn't believe me. "why would they choose my collections of all places to hide this 'crate'?"

like so much with the pack, i couldn't tell her. all i knew was that i "needed" to get it away from them. carmen walked confident for a while in her belief we weren't going to find any sign of the pack at all. which seemed to be validated after an hour. we hit every storage room in the department. we even hit sections that belonged to the chemistry, and biology departments.

just as i was losing hope, we walked past a hallway for the third time that we hadn't gone down. "what about down there?" i asked.

"that is just the maintenance corridor," carmen dismissed it. "there is nothing down there but the ventilation systems."

when she saw that i wasn't going to budge, carmen reluctantly agreed to take me down this last hallway. as we walked down it, the difference between it and the others become clear. the whole hallway was lined with pipes that pumped waste air from lab vacuum systems upstairs down here to their filtration systems. to make this controlled, and unnatural, flow of air work, this whole corridor was lined with air intake and outlet vents. giving it a very air conditioned feel.

i instantly hated it! it made my nose go "blind" (much like walking through a mirror funhouse visually)... normally anywhere i go there is something of a sedimentary stack of smells. even though i can't necessarily tell you exactly what an old smell was, i can tell it was there. in this place the rules meant nothing. smells got sucked away, or worse pumped in. rooms and people from upstairs were showing up on my smell radar as though they were right here... it was a very unpleasant.

i was starting to agree with carmen. there was no way a smell reliant coelurosaur would want to camp out down here. till after a couple minutes discomfort i realized something. this would be the perfect "cloaking device" for the pack... or for those who don't watch star trek. these smell cover would make them impossible for a odor based tracker of any sort to find them.

yet there was still no sign of them. that is until we reached the last corner. suddenly a huge shadow approached from around the corner.

"we need to hide!" i whispered panicked, looking around to find there were no rooms to duck into.

carmen grabbed me by the collar and pulled me behind a bunch of loose junk just sitting in the hallway.

a set of loud heavy steps grew close. suddenly a giant full grown cow tyrannosaurid walked into view RIGHT before us!!! my blood rain cold, and i started to vibrate with fear. carmen too grew really panicked, as she started to sweat heavily. which was a really big problem! this daspletosaurus had as good a sense of smell as i did, and she'd pick up carmen's ever increasing scent in moments... (isn't funny how the brain works. here i was petrified with fear, and yet i calmly IDed the dinosaur in front of me...)

as though it was reading my thoughts, the big female tyrannosaurid stopped dead in her tracks before us, and started sniffing the air. with but a tiny twist of its head to the left we would be discovered, and frankly we were dead meat! we had no cover or protection to speak of.
`

it was the worst 10 seconds of my life!!! the daspletosaurus like clock work bent right to wear i'd been standing a moment ago narrowing in on the smell. i knew exactly what she was doing, as i'd done it several times to dan and craig's hamburgers back in my childhood. she was just locking onto the most strong scents. in a moment she'd be able to follow them like a trail back to the strongest concentration of them (aka us sitting right beside her producing the smell in the first place!).
`
just as the daspletosaur was about to look our way, the ventilation roared into action. including the intake right behind us. next thing i knew i could smell me and carmen coming from the direction the daspletosaur had just come from. of course, with its equally powerful nose, the great predator veered right about (not noticing us in the process) having picked up our "getting right passed" it. she let out a really scary growl and stalked off towards the new smell.
`

"we have to get out of here now!" carmen ordered, saying pretty much what i was about to.
`

fortunately there was no sign of pursuit as we doubled back to the more public collections lobby. carmen couldn't fathom how, that alone why, a foreign dinosaur was hiding in her collections. i on the other hand had bigger concerns.

there was no doubt the primordials were hiding out here at the university now. i even knew where. however i was no closer to where the crate was being hidden specifically, that alone how i was going to get at it.

it turned out calming carmen down, i only had half that problem. she was determined to find out what was being hidden in her collections, and got out the plans for the building. there was only one possible room the pack could be hiding in...

looking over the blueprints of the complex, carmen gave me some ideas of ways into the room. the only really issue we were going to have getting in, was the number of theropods no doubt guarding the place.

i was going to need help. i was going to need organized help. good thing for me i knew just the people who could help me out! as luck would have it, i had arranged to have lunch with them tomorrow!

to be continued with a meal to remember...

collecting an ally

i'd finally found the needle in a haystack... errrr, well i guess the theropods in the big city...
`
the pack of the primordial feather was hiding at the university of calgary, and they'd brought the sinister (and mysterious) crate 14 with them!

now came the hard part (as though finding the sneaky theropods wasn't hard enough!), i was going to have to figure out how to either steal or destroy the crate. all the while making sure i wasn't stolen or destroyed along the way myself!
`
before i could do this safely, i was going to need to know the lay of the land. as the pack was hiding in the geology collection, it made sense to approach the one person who would know the collections way better then the primordials. the geology collections manager.
`
the university of calgary's geology department i have to say, despite being a slightly different visual style, otherwise has a layout perfect for a bad horror movie. its basement is just one step short of a maze, and as of such there were lots of places for the pack to hide. even worse for me, it made finding the collections manager something of a chore.
`
fortunately for me (and my super t-rex nose) not many people came down here for long. so i just had to follow scents that were strongest.

or at least that had been the idea... i followed several scent trails only to find that they led through collections and then right back out of them. lots of people went into the collections area, to probably get stuff out of them, but they didn't stay for long. meaning i was going to have to get lucky and stumble across the smell of the manager... with the risk of accidentally finding the pack while i was at it, way earlier then i'd "planned".

as i followed the 30th or 40th smell (well okay maybe 12th, who cares?!? i lost count, as it was so boring tracking them all!) i came into a collections room that had some draws wide open.

i couldn't help but take a slight peek...

why do i always have to peek?

there was all sorts of cool stuff in there!

the fossils of course took most of my interest. there was some neat stuff, but all smallish (minus one which i'm saving for this weekend's upcoming fossil of the weekend!).

however it was a chunk of shiny rock that quickly became my fixation. for it was shiny and gold colour... in fact i was willing to wager it was gold...

i looked all around me, i'm not sure why mind you, to see if anyone was there. the coast was clear.

some instinct in me (probably a predatory one, which pushed my wild savage ancestors to seize any free resource while the chance was good) compelled me to snatch it. the human trained part of me screamed it was wrong, but than realized why not? the collections were big, it wasn't like anyone was going to notice it missing... besides i had a world tour to fund!

startling me from behind came a loud. "oh no you don't!" as someone nabbed me from behind preventing my running off with the gold.

like a scavenger caught with the meat red mouthed, i spat out the gold. trying to pretend nothing had happened at all.

the woman who'd caught me took one look at the rock and stated amusedly. "the fool's gold, how fitting," she chuckled.

the what? oh no, i realized...

"can the fool explain?" i asked. come to think of it, that was a rather clever salvage on my part.

"why not," the woman graciously accepted. i quickly explained my irrational thinking, and logic. she laughed it off. "oh i wasn't worried about replacing of the pyrite. it's worth less than the ink it was number with. it's just a pain in the neck to have to catalogue everything again 'disappeared'."

i introduced myself, and i learned this nice lady's name was carmen... who was the collections manager!

"now if you'd have taken off with this," carmen held up a different rock from the pyrite's drawer. "then i'd have been annoyed."


i found myself ask by reflex. "is it valuable?" oh man, that must have come off wrong! i seriously didn't want to steal anymore stuff (today... a crate soon perhaps... but nothing from her or the university!)

carmen laughed again. "no," she'd deliberately tried to pull my leg. "i just like the colour of this particular piece!"

"so what can i help you with?" carmen inquired.

"how could you tell i was wanting your help," i answered her with my own question.

carmen smirked. "no one comes down here unless they need something from me."

how to word this properly... "i'm looking for a new item that was added to the collections. probably without your knowledge."... i probably should have mentioned i was looking for a box protected by a bunch of killer dinosaurs.

i didn't though. so carmen took us off into her collections based on my rather vague and cryptic criteria.

though this wasn't the most time efficient way of searching, i did get a cool tour of the whole collections area!

the coolest had to be this. or at least i thought it was until i found out what it was.

take a quick guess right now... what do you think this is?

i liked it because of the weird wrinkles in the rock. however, when i tried to pick it up, i discovered this little wacky piece of "stone" was amongst the heaviest things its size i have ever tried to lift!

if you asked me at that moment i would have thought this veiny mass to be a rock of some kind. i had no idea how scary it was!

carmen barked at me. "quit mucking with that meteorite! i don't want it broken."

i jumped back very startled! of all the things i fear, one of the greatest is meteorites. even long fallen ones like this... yeah it's kind of silly, but just think what happened to my kind 65 million years ago, and hopefully you'll follow my phobia!

it was made of pure iron, explaining why it was so heavy! when i say pure iron, i mean way more pure than it is typically found on planet earth...

next we came to a room with one of those cool boxes with the handling gloves built in... perfect for isolating stuff.

i couldn't resist, and tried to handle the substance in the container. my tiny arms wouldn't fit. yet i still managed to move the stuff in the middle enough to get a "traumador!" from carmen.

"i see what the palaeo people are on about. you dinosaurs being a real hand full," as she corrected what i'd done.

"speaking of which," i decided to end our search on my desired quarter, rather then have carmen kick me out (due to touching stuff i shouldn't be... got to work on that!). "the item we're looking for. it was smuggled into the university by some particularly troublesome dinosaurs."

carmen shushed me with her finger... her FINGER! no one has done that to me for a long time! i thought i was getting better at not yammering all the time... "that is the silliest thing i've heard, hmmm at least today," she stated. "none of the lab rats are clever enough to have planted anything down here. that alone have anything worth to hide."

"it wasn't the rats," i clarified agreeing with her disbelief. the vivus-dinosaurs kept here at the university legitimately couldn't have pulled something like the crate.

"not the rats?" she asked unsure what i meant. "what other dinosaurs could it have been?"

oh man. well at least we'd have time for the story as we checked out the more hidden sections of the collections...

to be continued with monsters in the maze...