Dinotopia: Survival of the Lost

[spirits breath]

Along the streets of waterfall city, human and saurian alike seemed to be filling the very air with energy. The pasty white on many buildings from the carnivore attack several years ago still remained. More of a memory, as well as to others a place to practice art, easily going back over it with a fresh layer to correct it.

Within the tan roads, small venders held a large variety of goods. Some of the more fancy looking ones held things such as elegant robes, to dyes. Some even spices. A strange spectacle to show human and a small Hypsilophodon walking alongside her human partner, both in a red rope, with thin streaks of copper colored thread giving a bit of a metallic look in it. Along the sides had a reddened tan to match. Made partially of nylon for stretch and comfort.

Within his own little home, Hryssar, a troodon. He had only recently finished getting a bag together for his own need to gather herbs and if lucky, a bite of real food in the form of meat. with him, he carried a journal, a handful of fruit and vegetables to sate him in case, and then he started out the door.

Nearly four feet out the door, his head seemed to hatch a memory. A book that he had, perhaps a full moon cycle now. He walked into his house again, jogging over to the bookshelf and ket his claws dance along the edges lightly. "Winona is going to remove ever feather in my tail if I don't get this to her. And she calls herself a librarian too." a light hissing chuckle came from his lips.

On his way out, a small sunstone that marked the entrance to his home. he could actually look at it directly without as much sear to his eyes. He simply shrugged it off as nothing before he stepped outside, closing the door softly and then dashing down to the library, New Age of the Sunstones: A guide of uses, and what to use them for. The book that took more than a few nights to read.

Meanwhile...

"Lord Keith! Reports from the skybax are here. Two more outlaying villages have been destroyed. The cause is unknown." A padded blue rider spoke up.

"Unknown? you say?" He leans forward. Black hair and his brown robes going with him. "You are aware that unknown reasons why villages are destroyed, especially ones barely in the zones that would be dangerous. Investigate, look for anything small. Unless the carnivores are wising up and trying to cut off supplies, I fear that we may have a big problem."

"But lord." He speaks up, hand on his skybax. "The one was comprised mostly of humans, and the other an even mix. Yet not a word is given."

"Then..."

"I will be off." The young rider, within a minute was diving out of the large spire.

[Lord Tully]

The crashing waves nearby brought Jack back into the realm of the living, miving his arm a little he could feel that he was on some kind of beach. "Ugh, what happened?" Jack groaned as he put a hand up to his forehead, what ever it was it left him with a thumping headache. "Professor?" he asked lifting his head a bit, "Professor?" Jack repeated when no answer came. Feeling a bit panicky, Jack immediately struggled to his feet to look around, he was on an beach with a jungle-like evironment barely a 100 yards away from the water's edge. Seeing no sign of anybody else from the plane Jack began to shout "Hello!? Can anybody hear me? Is anybody there? HELLO?"

After a minute or so of shouting for help Jack put his hands on either side of his head and began pacing, "Alright Jack, don't panic, you can get through this. your on an uncharted island in the middle of bloody nowhere, but you WILL survive this." he said trying to pep himself up. During this brief mental lapse Jack spotted a small box a small distance up the beach, "Oh thank god." he said as he scrambled through the sand hoping that it contained ANYTHING useful. When he finally reached the container jack threw to the lid open and began to rifle through the contents, most of it seemed to be maps but many of them had been rendered useless by the sea water. "Let's see, let's see. Ohh a compass, a flare gun with two flares, and flashlight." He spoke as he pulled the objects out of the box. "Not the best bunch of gadgets but you could do worse." he said as he tucked the flare gun into his pocket and began debating whether or not to go off the beach.

[Ushima]

"Seventy-five." Someone counted

"Come on you can do better!" A deeper voice spoke.

"Shut up Jak!" The first person yelled. The yeller was a human, about six foot five inches tall, he had dark hair and green eyes. His body was well toned with several scarson his torso. His name was Dante Scott, grandson of one of Dinotopia's heros. The voice wasn't human at all. It was Dante's partner Jak, a Triceratops. Jak was a bit larger than the average Triceratops, with dark grey scales, red eyes, long horns and a scar on it's left shoulder. The two old friends had stopped at the beach on their travels, resting. Well Jak was resting, Dante was exercising.

"You hear that?" Jak turned his head away from his human and looked down the beach. "Gear up." The dino got up as Dante started putting on his armor, his old military uniform (http://i297.photobucket.com/albums/mm219/bloodgarde/untitled7.jpg), with a few modifications. Grabbing his spear Dante jumped onto Jak's back and the duo took off down the beach. "See anything Dante?"

"Over there!" Dante pointed and they approached a human. He pointed his spear at the unknown person. "You there, seem a bit lost. Perhaps I could help."

[Lord Tully]

As Jack stood on the beach he thought he had heard some sort of loud thumping coming behind him but he ignored it as he wasn't really paying attention. He only turned around when he heard a voice.
You there, seem a bit lost. Perhaps I could help.
Jack turned to thank you speaker, "Oh thank god, I was afraid I wa..." Jack's thoat closed up as he saw the spear point. Add the giant creature the man was riding to the sight and Jack immediatly turned around and started running towards the trees.

[Jacogos]

A little scrape there... another file there... Nick that a few times... Scratch scratch... Koal enjoyed having claws, as it allowed him the ability to carve pieces of wood, as he was doing right then. He was sitting in his workshop, if you could call it that, carving away at a small piece of wood that had a vaguely quadrupedal look to it. It was impossible to say for sure, in its current state.

He didn't like to be without something to do, which is why this was such a great hobby, as there was no end to the wood in Dinotopia. Well, as far as he was concerned, at least. He looked down at his 'desk calender' (a sheet of paper with dates on it) and sighed. No one had come in for the past three or so days. He had lost track, so it had to be more than three.

Getting up from his spot, he sat the figurine down on the desk and looked around his shop. Just a few tools here and there with a large table in the middle for projects, as well as his desk for papers and non-work related things. Koal sighed again. When was something interesting going to happen around here?

With nothing else to do, Koal figured he would head out for the day. It wasn't likely anyone would come by, and if they did, most knew to leave a note that he could find, which he would respond to posthaste. That's how he was. So Koal locked up and headed out into the village, wondering what he could find to do today.

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Winona had gotten up rather early for her, as she was expecting a new book to arrive from another village. To her own elation, it had arrived in the night and she squealed slightly as she drug the package into the library. She used her beak-like jaw to quickly snip into the package, since she lacked the claws to do so otherwise. Her features formed into a smile as she reached inside and pulled out the long coveted Chandera: The Epic of the Lost Empire. She opened the book, almost pristine in its preservation. A small leaflet fell out of the front cover, and Winona picked it up in interest. It read as follows:

Dear Winona,
I enjoyed our little chat last time you visited, and must admit, you drove quite a hard bargain for this book. Surely you will have a better time with it than I did, but that won't be very likely, haha. Remember out little agreement, and all will be fine and dandy, but forget and I'll have to do something very bad!

At that, Winona giggled. He wouldn't harm a velociraptor if it was eating his guts out. He'd probably wish it well before dying. She continued reading.

Nevertheless, you'll have a grand time with the Epic, and doubtless you WILL reread it as many times as I have. Just... don't rent it out TOO much, or likely someone will end up ruining it!

Anyhoo, hope to see you again soon, Winona!

Sincerily, Jethro

Smiling more, Winona placed the letter in the book and trotted back up to her second story room to place it on her reading desk. Well, it was meant to be a writing desk, but Winona did far more reading than writing. Then, she headed back down and started her morning sweep of the library, making sure everything was clean and in place.

[spirits breath]

Hryssar weaved through the crowd, the feathers at the end of his tail brushing off more than a few of them. He quickly shouted 'sorry' and gripped the book tighter. soon, he had caught sight of something that just made his eyes look at it. A glimmering scaled cloak. shimmering in a golden luster. With his gaze fixated on the luster, his bag shifted out of position, locking right into his legs gap to prevent him from moving it up enough for his quick steps.

The ground, while only a few feet off the ground seemed to grow quickly as he tumbled over himself, trying to hop to his feet to only send him airborn. He hit the ground with a dust raising thud. A groan going where he was. He patted his chest with both claws...meaning the book!

Scales bent over his shoulders and hips as he scuttled to find the yellow covered book. Near four minutes spent, avoiding permanant skull damage narrowly as he kept his head low. when he eventually found it, he noticed a pebbled scratch on the bottom corner and along the spine. those areas taking the brunt of the impact. "Oh no." He spoke softly.

He walked quickly, trying to remove the dust and embedded pebbles, but his claws sent a indent as he did so unknowingly. Moments later, he was in the library. Walking down to where he received the book and then counting through the alphabet, he looked for the gap to slide it in. And then he remembered just how he got it. It was on the ladder. and he hatted ladders with a passion. Looking around once more, he lightly bit it with his serrated teeth and started to climb slowly.

[Ushima]

Dante just stared for a bit, then spoke. "Well that was...interesting."

"I thought it was hilarious." Jak laughed.

"Well with a response like that I am lead to assume he just recently washed up. Oh man he has no clue whats out there. After him!" Jak and Dante rode off after the man, worried. He was sworn to protect people at all cost, that was what he learned while being trained and that ideal still holds strong in him.

"Ok where'd this guy go?" The Triceeratops stopped to look around. "Oh man I hope nothing happens to him."

"Yeah me to. It can get pretty nasty out here." Dante and Jak have been in more than their fair share of skirmishes and had one to many close calls. "We have to get him to Waterfall city." Dante dismounted and looked around. "Where the hell did he go?"

[Xanthuss]

Masters carefully hung his newest edition to his collection on the main wall of his lounge. The painting, a beautifully done portrait of London in the 1800's, was set in a old wooden frame, which had been done over in gold leaf.
The painting had been salvaged from the wreck of a private yacht that had wrecked off the coast. The painting was un-damaged, except that the signature of the artist was smudged and could no longer be read, and the frame had had to be replaced.

"Lovely." He heard his good friend Cedric say from behind him, as he entered the room.
"Yes it is isn't it? Salvaged it from the wreck of the HMS Spirited Away," Masters said, climbing down from the ladder and turning to look at Cedric.
Cedric was currently wearing a leather saddle like contraption that was filled with pockets that contained scrolls.
"I found a real treasure today." Cedric said, jerking his head towards an ancient looking scroll that sat in one of the pockets on his back.
"What is it?" Masters asked, approaching and pulling the scroll from its holder carefully.
"An ancient map of Dinotopia.” Cedric replied, continuing to study the picture.
“Its titled “London in its glory”, I believe London’s a human city.” Masters said, “interesting to look at, but not as lovely as our own city.”

[Lord Tully]

Jack stopped and ducked behind a fallen tree after running a hundred or so feet into the jungle. "Oh god, oh god, what was that?" he said in a panic stricken voice. He drew the flare gun and took a few deep breaths, "If they only have spears, this should give them quite a fright." he only had two flares, but he hoped he wouldn't actually need to use them. he was in the process of loading one of the flares when he heard a low thump. Then Jack heard another, and another, they were close by, and what ever was making them was very large, ~Please don't kill me.~ he thought as he slowly walked towards the source of the thumps. He pushed through the vegetation and soon came across what was making the noise, he could see them but Jack's mind would not believe it "It's, i-i-it's." He stammered as he tried to put words to a giant Sauropod calmly walking through the trees. In a complete state of shock, Jack dropped the flare gun and the flare and slowly started walking back towards the beach, clearly he had gone mental so better to see if the man on the beach was real.

When Jack reached the beach he turned to look for the man with the spear, he still had a dumbfounded look on his face and quite a bit of color had left him. When he eventually saw the man, Jack was able to actually see his mount, a triceratops, ~Yeah, sure, why not? ~ he thought giving into his loss in sanity. Feeling quite tired and starting to get hungery, Jack couldn't really run anymore so he sort of staggered towards the man. "Sorry about that mate." he said once within ear shot of the man, "Where I'm from it's concidered a tad rude to stick your spear in a strangers face. But I'll forgive you." he said to the pair. Jack was almost confident that this was some kind of hallucination brought on by a head trauma so he spoke like little he said mattered, "So dinosaurs." Jack turned to face the large animal beside the man with the spear. "That must be pretty exciting, back home we only have lizards like this big." he put his hand up with his fingers a little ways apart to show how small the lizards are back home. "Ohh I'm sorry I didn't intoduce myself. I'm Jack."