In reply to Frank Guberman (msg # 125):

Kate wasn't quite as quick as Frank to go running towards danger.  At least that wasn't how she saw it.  Instead she went bounding up the slope to the woman instead.  Her biggest concern really was that the poor woman not slip and fall, rather than monstrous dinosaurs.  Still she paused before reaching her though, and slowed down, waiting for the normal fear or rejection her appearance would cause.

OOC: updated a bit for clarity of thought.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:24, Tue 12 Jan 2021.

Ana Sofía also heads toward the woman, but she's not nearly as quick as the others, so she ends up running up the incline at the back of the small pack.

Seeing the heroes climbing up the ridge didn’t do much to calm the woman’s nerves.  If anything, she became more agitated:
“Oh, thank God you’re here”  she reached to grasp Frank’s wrist in desperation ”Please;  There’s no time to waste. You must help us”

"Yes, ma'am... we're here to help," Frank said, looking about for any immediate danger. The drums were still beating, but he'd almost forgotten them as they'd long since receded into the background of the storm still raging about them. But they probably represented the danger Frank was looking for.

Hey... drums and dinos? Humans never lived in the same era as dinosaurs. But this was a simulation, not reality. There could even be aliens lurking about, if the teachers wanted it that way.

"What's the trouble?"

“Doctor Perez.  He’s ” her voice faltered  “He’s hurt”
The downpour wiped her tears off, but the redness around her eyes betrayed the fact that she has been crying her eyes out.

“There isn’t time” she let go of Frank, looking at him shortly, then back at the path behind her  “Please.  We must help him.  Get him to a hospital”

Zoey walks along near the rear of the party of trainees, mumbling profanity to herself at the indignity of the situation. The emotional stormcloud brewing over her nearly rivals the one that continues to pour hot rain down on them. She hates this place. Hate hate hate. When this is all over she's going swimming in Breakstone Lake. She doesn't give a damn how cold it is.

Compared to those feelings, the mud and grit she gets under her fingernails as she climbs the incline with her fellow students barely even registers. The rain would wash it away soon enough.

If anything, news of a medical emergency actually lightened her mood some. She hustles to the front of the line, standing next to Frank. "Someone is hurt?" she asks. "Show me."

Kate was so surprised that the woman didn't even blink at her appearance that she just sort of stood there, rain pelting down until Zoey caught up.  "Oh um, right, yes lets go help them."  The girl looked like she wasn't sure just what to do with herself now settling for offering Ana a hand up to the top of the slope and waiting to see if Barnell or Victor need any help before moving on to follow the rest.

Evelyn didn’t stop to answer Frank’s question, nor asked any of her own.  There was simply no time to waste.  They found out why a short minute later, once they’ve reached the small camping site.

Lying in the center of it, in his own pool of blood, was Perez (at least, they could only assume it was him).  The side of his body has been punctured, a gash so deep there wasn’t much that could be done to help him other than give him his last rites.  It didn’t stop the two men crouching by his side from trying to save him.  They kept pressure on the wound, bound it, but all their efforts could only delay the inevitable.

The culprit of the attack was lone gone, but by the looks of what remained of the camping site it must have been something exceedingly large.  The tents and camping equipment were scattered, while the surrounding trees – dozens of feet high, were violently uprooted and tossed aside like matchsticks.   Seeing the destruction around them, it was surprising that Perez was the only member of the expedition to have been seriously hurt, and that the rest of them haven’t found themselves inside the belly of some great lizard.

Approaching a few steps closer, you notice yet another member of the expedition.  A bearded man in a weathered safari hat hiding under a sheet of tarpaulin to protect himself, and the large metal box he was carrying, from getting wet.  He was so preoccupied talking into the satellite phone receiver (the only words they could make out were ‘Professor’, and ‘Help’), that he didn’t notice Evelyn and the others have came back until they were in the camping site proper.
This message was lightly edited by the GM at 19:45, Wed 13 Jan 2021.

“Oh God” Evelyn rushed to the side of Perez and knelt beside him, holding his hand in hers “Please. Hector. Stay with me…I got help.  Stay with me”

Perez was way beyond the basic First Aid training that Frank had received in middle school. In fact he was pretty hard to look at, he was so badly hurt. And yet it was hard not to stare.

"Can you help him?" he asked Zoey, breaking his gaze away from the likely terminal Perez. He looked around, feeling pretty useless. He wasn't a healer of any sort. He wasn't much of a fighter, either... but he was still better suited for that than for helping the injured. He glanced in the direction of the broken trees. "Maybe I should make sure that whatever came through here isn't doubling back."

In reply to Frank Guberman (msg # 135):

Kate shivered when she came upon the scene.  Her wet scraggly hair hiding the sudden whiteness of her skin.  This was really too real and she didn't like it at all.  The dinosaurs had been kind of fun, a game, but this, this was too much detail and so rather than do anything productive she just stood there shivering in the warm rainfall.

Zoey hustled behind the scientist-looking woman; if she had given her name Zoey hadn't been paying attention, and given that she was naught but photons and psionics she had even less of a fuck to give than usual. Zoey was much more interested in having a practical problem to take her mind off the environment.

Then she saw the challenge ahead of her.

"Bloody hell... literally," she mutters, pausing in her tracks. She drew nearer to get a better perspective; a hand went to her face to adjust a pair of glasses that were probably still an amorphous lump somewhere on Manhattan. She swore again.

Right, practical problems. Zoey knelt beside the wounded man, trying to get a sense of what she was dealing with. She was a fair hand at medicine, especially with her mutant capabilities backing them up, but she was still limited by the resources of the body she was working with. Her "patient" had lost a lot of blood; even if she could instruct his body to repair itself it likely didn't have the electrolytes left to actually do it. Zoey was in great shape and even she could get pretty messed up by the aftershocks of severe bio-manipulations.

But... when the alternative is death, even the long shot isn't much of a gamble. But she wasn't going to take the responsibility if she failed. She glanced to one of the two nondescript men nearby, the one that looked more senior of the two. "I can try to help, but there's a high probability it will just kill him faster. Do I have your blessing to continue?"

Assuming she received permission, Zoey rolls the dice and begins her (metaphorical) magic.

---

Not sure exactly what I should roll here but this seems like a safe bet.

16:52, Today: Zoey Fujino rolled 20 using 1d10+1d10+1d8 with rolls of 8,8,4.  Vital Healing.

I'll take an 8 and 4 for accuracy and a d10 for effect. I'll also spend one PP to activate my healing feature, which should allow me to step back the dude's trauma if I am reading this correctly.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:02, Thu 14 Jan 2021.

When Perez stopped bleeding, it was only because he was all out of blood. Or so Evelyn and the two men believed, right until he opened his eyes and looked at them.   Gasping, Evelyn picked up the doctor’s limp hand and held it with both of hers.  There was no way she could hide the tears, now.

“Annika…. Is she alright? Did he take her?” Perez's voice cracked out of blood-stained lips. He barely had the strength to talk, but he will have the answer to his question.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:54, Thu 14 Jan 2021.

Evelyn looked back at the ruined camp.  It took her a while to decide whether she should lie to Perez or not.  She didn’t want to worry him, not in his condition.
“She’s fine"  her grip over his hand tightened  "Everyone’s fine”
This message was last edited by the player at 18:58, Thu 14 Jan 2021.

Despite the fact that she had just worked a small miracle, Zoey didn't seem any happier. In fact she looked doubtful of her own work. She stood, chewing her lower lip in thought, then threw up her arms in surrender. "Screw your photons and psionics!" she yells at the sky, twists sharply on the spot, then heads to a tent for a brief but much-needed respite from the rain.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:13, Thu 14 Jan 2021.

Zoey was having a bit of a meltdown. Well-deserved, Frank supposed. This scenario had been especially rough on her so far.

Not knowing what he could do about that, or if he should even try, he turned and went after whatever beast had attacked the camp. It had taken someone, and if she was still alive it was his job to get her back as safely as possible.

In reply to Frank Guberman (msg # 142):

Kate wasn't quite willing to just pick a random direction, so she caught the wrist of the man furthest from the pair kneeling and laying in the muck respectively.  "Which way did they go, oh and who is He?"  She didn't speak loudly but it seemed like good information to have before wandering into the jungle.

"I can try to locate whoever it is, but I don't know who I'm looking for."

“You’re Xavier’s men!” it wasn’t a question, but a statement.  He was expecting the Professor to send help, but they sure got here fast.  He hanged up the phone and covered the transmitter under the plastic sheet to protect it from the rain, but before he would answer the cat-woman (he was polite not to stare), he had to make sure Hector was alright.  Which he was.

“He claimed to be the ruler of these lands” he motioned with his head at the fallen trees “and looks like the lizards think so as well, as he seems to be able to control them.  He was only interested in Annika, for an ‘experiment’ he was conducting.  When Hector tried to stop him…” he trailed off, letting them fill in the blanks themselves
“You’ve got to rescue her!  We can’t leave her behind”

Kate listened patiently even as Frank got further and further ahead.  She couldn't help muttering "seriously?" under her breath when Eduardo reached the bit about the dinosaurs answering to a man.

"Well um, looks like Tank has the right idea, we better go catch up with him.  At least they should be easy to follow..."  She was starting to commiserate with fishgivinggirl's feelings on this whole exercise.  Not only a jungle, and rain, and dinosaurs, but now dinosaur masters as well.

With things looking in good shape here, Sofía jogs along to follow Frank. Before leaving she says to the two, "Don't worry. We'll be back."

It took a few hours to track down the mad scientist.  By then the rain has stopped, the clouds parted, and the sun came out – together with a cloud of blood sucking mosquitos (those the danger-room simulated by constantly pinching at the heroes’ exposed skin).  The trail they followed, pretty wide to begin with, opened up to a large jungle clearing; the scene-to-be of the final confrontation.

Right in the middle of the clearing was a large stone slab, on top of which a teenage girl was lying.  She was either sleeping, or unconscious, her hands folded over her chest as if she was an Egyptian mummy.  Standing next to the primitive altar were several people; the first being a herculean body-builder in a fur loincloth.  His long blonde hair was wild and unkempt, as was his beard.  Second was a woman who could have served as an inspiration for a particularly raunchy pulp magazine cover; blonde, leggy, busty, her attire consisting of a thin leather thong that left little to the imagination.  To complete the stereotype, she was carrying a mighty spear, and had a sabretooth tiger resting at her feet.

But strangest of them all was the scientist they’ve been looking for.  The man looked completely out of place in the jungle, with his pale skin, tattered clothing, shaggy hair, and eye-glasses with the cracked lenses.  Or at least he looked out of place – right until the moment he transformed before their startled eyes.  The sickening sound of bones snapping paved the way to the deformation of his skull, as his jaw stretched forward to form an elongated beak, and a bony protrusion broke through the back of his cranium.  What was left of his weathered clothes was ripped to shreds as muscles burst through the seams of his shirt and pants, and leathery skin stretched from underneath his arms.  And with his body turning a deep shade of green the transformation was complete.

Gone was Carly Lykos.  Now welcome Sauron , Lord of the Savage Land!

The human-pterosaurs gave the cheeks of the young girl one last caress before he turned toward the heroes:

“Ahhh, our guessssts have arrived, and jusssssst in time”

Behind him, under the shadows of the tall trees loomed the giant Tyrannosaurus Rex.  Big yellowish eye with vertical black pupil observed the bags-of-meat that foolishly walked into its territory. The mighty beast lurched forward, puffed hot air through its nostrils and menacingly snapped its teeth.  Even from a distance, the stench of rotten flesh was unmistakable.  This was a carnivore, that under any other circumstances would have attacked them by now – if it wasn’t for the hold his master had over him.

“We have been waiting for you”

In reply to Sauron (msg # 149):

Kate watched it all unfold before asking, with a rather confused tone of voice.  "Why?  I mean, how did you even know we were coming to wait for us?  That seems kind of strange especially if you took her to experiment on but then decided to wait rather than go ahead..."

She had been having a slightly less miserable time than some of the others, her fur protecting her from some of the mosquito's attacks, though not perfectly, and it was not a comfortable or particularly happy kitfox girl who was looking across the clearing towards the varied enemies, Man, Woman, Tiger, Dinosaur, Scientist.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:59, Mon 18 Jan 2021.