Episode 2: Fossil Fools

Arnos was sitting in the local Schorbach's reading *War and Peace* and drinking his mochaccino with extra sprinkles *in* peace when a young woman approached him from behind. She remarked out loud that he was obviously not human- he was disguising his elfin and wolfish qualities with magic as per the usual precautions- and that they should be friends. She said her family was in trouble and she needed the help of a fellow fey creature to save them. Arnos assembled the team, some of whom were at their jobs and others who were bonding as new-found friends,and they met in a nearby alleyway.

There the girl revealed herself to be a Ivy, a six-inch-tall pixie who was secretly living in Sapphire City. She was completely adorable, and she and Angus bonded over their love of drinking. She even had a vial of 'moondrops,' a Fey liquor that even the Uberjack couldn't stomach, almost incapacitating the invincible Scotsman before their quest had even begun. She led them to the woods to where her family was living as she explained the situation, only to find the village was under attack by none other than a pack of dinosaur soldiers equipped with futuristic armor and flamethrowers. The group picked them off one by one, their targets disintegrating into bones, dust and oil as they fell. Carrion even drained the life out of one of them, but he felt no life in the energy he drained- almost as if they weren't live dinosaurs at all. The pack fell easily enough, but by the time the fight was over the trees had all been burned and Ivy's friends and family had been lost to the conflagration.

Upon further exploration they found what the dinosaurs had really been searching for in the woods - a unearthed dig site was found nearby, filled with an assortment of bones. With his specialty in archaeology a flustered Maxwell failed to learn anything more about the bones, but it was obvious that they were connected to the dinosaur soldiers in some way or another. With heavy hearts the heroes headed back into the city, only to learn of a hostage situation at the Natural History museum- they quickly diverted themselves there to investigate.

Outside the museum countless cop cars were lined up attempting to keep civilians out and the hostages inside safe. The group could not get any closer the way they were, and especially considering *who* they were. Arnos and Maxwell combined their illusion magic to make the non-human or non-living members of the party appear more ordinary, and they approached the police to try and defuse the situation. Meanwhile, Boanna phased invisibly through the museum facade and found herself in a museum overtaken by the weapon-wielding reptiles. She found a few cowering scientists in the research and development wings of the museum and healed their wounds- though they couldn't see her they thanked her for her help. After knocking a few dinosaurs unconscious she proceeded through the facility only to trigger a trap, which in turn knocked her unconscious for the first time in 700 years as an alarm blared around her.

Meanwhile in the courtyard, the others were trying to formulate a plan to sneak into the museum themselves. Arnos proposed a distraction in the form of an illusion, and he and Maxwell collaborated on a projection of a horrible tentacle-monster... which manifested with a mustache due to Sevlok's petty interference. The illusory cephalopod kept the police busy while the heroes snuck into the museum. They still could not find Boanna, but searched for the hostages in the meantime. Suddenly, they were jumped by a group of soldiers - a ambush that was easily disposed of. They heard noises from the theater on the bottom floor and devised another whacky plan to scare the dinosaurs there away from their hostages. Arnos and Maxwell projected an illusion of a meteor blasting through the theater- every dinosaur's primal fear - and Angus waited at the exit with his axe ready to clothes-line the panicking soldiers. Arnos tried to debut his 'Blood-Claw-Attack,' but failed. The group still took down the dinosaur soldiers easily enough, and with the threat gone they ushered the hostages outside to safety as they continued to search for Boanna.

Their search led them to the top-floor labs, where they saw their ghostly companion contained in some sort of cage. Before they could discover how this was even possible, the clacking symphony of dozens of rifles being racked precluded the appearance of rows of dinosaur soldiers with rifles aimed right at them. At their head was Cerebralsaurus Rex, a tall, anthropomorphic tyrannosaurus with a prominently bulging brain. He pompusly announced he had done his research, and had managed to learn everything about each member of the party on the 'internet library,' - where they were apparently easy to find. He urged them all to surrender and put them in chains, each one according to their strength. He then locked them in a nearby lab with a large and dormant fossil of a dinosaur and his *K2-Genesis beam*, which- as he explained in a stereotypical villain's monologue- would bring the creature to life within a short time. He left them there to die while he headed to a nearby oil tanker to resurrect a massive army of dinosaurs from the fossils contained within. He waved them goodbye with a "ta-tah," and Angus was angered by his British accent.

With little time and their hands tied, the group had to formulate an escape. They suggested removing Angus or Carrion's arms, since they would grow back later, but had no way of reaching the axe in order to do so. Arnos tried to claw his way out, only to find his magic was sealed by the special cuffs on his wrists. Finally, Maxwell proposed to have his familiar, an adorably corpulent pidgeon, use its... fire breath... on Angus's cuffs and free him. This took a few tries, but by the time the dinosaur was moving to life the heroes were free of their shackles and ready to fight. The dino charged at the group, who were able to weaken it in mere minutes. Angus took pleasure in axing it to pieces, and before long the fight was over and the group charged out of the museum to pursue Cerebralsaurus and his soon-to-be army.

They knew they did not have much time to defeat him, as the K2-Genesis beam was already powering up at the top of the oil container. They fought their way through all ten stories of the urban facility, felling legions of Rex's minions along their way. The dinosaurs fired their laser cannons this and that way, but the heroes were undeterred and mostly unharmed by the time they burst out upon the roof to confront Cerebralsaurus and his elite guard. He congratulated them on escaping his 'death trap' and taunted them to fight him again while the laser powered up. Ivy, Boanna and Maxwell focused on disarming the K2 beam while the others fought the reptilian mastermind himself. Angus was particularly passionate, slicing away at the funny-talking dinosaur as he had the zombie-robot-dinosaurs he met in Nezhizen's lab, a flurry of Scottish fury. Cerebralsaurus managed to hold his own for some time, but while Angus was thrown aside Carrion managed to dent his primal cannon-arm with a piece of stray rubble. The ranged combatants were ultimately successful in shutting down the K2-Genesis beam, and with his plan foiled, the brainy reptile was down to his last wits. Angus brought him to the brink, but rather than let himself be fully defeated he fell backward off the platform, only to be picked up and swept away by a pack of pterodactyls.

Though they could not save everyone, our heroes had saved Sapphire City from a dinosaur uprising of considerable danger. Ivy thanked them for her help and even shared some of her moondrops with 'Mr. Drinky,' who passed out on the spot. With another enemy defeated, the team went their separate ways- to be reunited when crime called them to action again.