Mission: Exotic Retrieval

Lucius Aetherious but you can call him you can call him Louie Aether (pronounced Ether) or the Dino King. He has contacted for help in containing a few escaped animals from his zoo. He would like them to be returned alive if possible but if not he would like them to be put down as to not impact the local habitat. He is being harassed by a troll named Cull Bagskin she is most likely to blame for releasing these wild animals. The party retrieves 3 of the 4 Clawfoots and one of the two of the mating couple of Ankylosaurs the other dying of a broken heart.

## Exotic Retrieval (by Rheinhart)

Lucius Aetherious, aka Louie Aether, contacted Farhaven for help in containing a few escaped animals. I joined forces with a few others to help out. Joining us for this mission was the acrobatic arch-bow-ologist Akame whose trick shots are insane sometimes -- but if you need an apple shot from the top of your head, she’s your girl! The elderly, affable, and enigmatic Touch, priest of the goddess Hestia, joined us as well. That cart of his contains a treasure trove of useful stuff. Inscrutable Issac, a fellow chess player and a man that loves to bicker playfully with The Touch is a newer arrival that I only met recently. He seems to avoid people as if trying to hide from pursuit even though he’s far from wherever he came from. Captain Chappy... err, I mean Chipper Chappy, my good buddy who’s been in a good mood recently also rounded out our little band of derring do-gooders.

When we arrived at the little zoo Louie Aether was running, it was clear the man thought very highly of himself and of his collection of animals. Strange beasts they were, many of them myths and legends for me, yet living and breathing either in large pens or a few in giant cages. I was particularly interested in the one Displacer Beast he had, but would have to come back to visit in order to check that one out more. His favorite animal is the dinosaur, which the others in my group had to tell me what they were. I’d never heard of giant lizard beasts, nor had any idea what to expect trying to track down and capture some Clawfoots and a mated pair of Ankylosaurs. We started referring to Louie as “The Dino King” because it rolls off the tongue easier than his actual name… and he loved being called a king! He understood if we couldn’t capture them all and it was better if they were put down rather than roam free to protect the impact they would have on the local habitat.

In addition to tracking down the beasts, we were to keep an eye out for some “troll named Cull Bagskin” as he blames her for breaking out the wild dinosaurs regardless of any evidence and especially in the lack of anything else. They did not escape on their own (that much was obvious) and they left a fairly obvious trail to follow, so off we went in search of the beasts. After we stopped to rest a few hours in, we got to talking about how best to capture these beasts as we didn’t exactly come equipped to capture large wild animals, nor did the Dino King supply us with anything to aid us. We figured it best to just pull our punches and magic use as best as we could.

It was about that time that we realized we were facing ~~an eight story tall crustacean from the Pesazoic Era wanting tree fiddy~~ four large turkeys with razor sharp talons attacking us! We caught up to them and they decided to try and eat us! We managed to not kill three of them and tied them up with plenty of rope. Adventurers and The Touch’s cart containing plenty of the strong hempen rope.

We tracked the mated Ankylosaurs, which turned out to be giant armored turtles with huge clubs on the tips of their massively muscular tails. Trying not to hurt them and yet survive their attacks turned out to be very difficult and the male ended up dying. Thankfully, they were too slow to hit any of us with those tails as they would likely have nearly killed us with one hit. I tried to imitate the royal ranchers who take prized bull sperm and manually impregnate cows, but I don’t think it worked at all. The Dino King was greatly disappointed at losing one of the matched pair, but he said it couldn’t be helped and at least the female survives as those were harder to come by. I know not where he’s getting ANY of the beasts in his zoo, but we just nodded, took our reward and left post haste while he ranted and raved at the air about Cull Bagskin.