Lucian nodded in recognition. “Of course, Baron, I would not presume to be the one to be leading the expedition, only that if the ones leading wish to take the expedition through sacred Luba tribelands, swimming across hippo infested waters, or generally somewhere that would certainly lead to needless injuries or fatalities, I will be interjecting. To be clear, I am fully committed to the success of an expedition, but I am also committed to preserving the lives of those under my watch. Other than that, everything else that has been outlined is certainly agreeable. I am at your service.” He declared, lifting his glass in a salute to Alcander, who seemed to be quite adept at thoughtful interjections.

When the tablet came out, Lucian only spared it a cursory glance. He was not in the habit of pretending to know things when he did not, and languages that he was unfamiliar with were well outside of his expertise. He simply had to trust that one of the others could vouch for it. The skull, however, was quite another story. Without asking permission, Lucian rose up to stand alongside Alcander and Elle in inspecting the skull; he’d brought down most everything that walked in Africa, and outside of the great bears of the North and the Rocky Mountains, Africa had by far the largest animals to walk the present day Earth. He studied the skull, running his fingers along the bone and inspecting the entry-wound. If this was a fabricated remain, it was damned convincing. He’d simply killed too many animals not to be familiar with what bone was supposed to be like; the only thing that gave him pause was the scale of the thing and its very foreign visage; it looked to be a hybrid between a reptile and a bird. Nothing like that existed.

The Frenchman was a skeptic at heart, and he knew dinosaurs couldn’t possibly still exist. Still, a part of him grew excited by this revelation. He’d heard “Mokele M'bembe” spoken by tribesmen, but he’d never quite understood the meaning. He’d always thought it was one of their gods or revered historical figures. If what the Baron said was true, this was truly something incredible. Every fiber of his being screamed that what he was being told was absolute horseshit, but he’d signed up to guide expeditions that were ultimately pointless and in search for equally preposterous goals, but Lucian wasn’t paid to question the motives. He was simply there to do his job and keep people alive. 

A childish part of him hoped, deep down, that the dinosaur part was real, despite all of his reservations. He listened to Elle’s protests of how it might be fake, and she could very well be right. However, his gut was telling him otherwise. Fossils were a different beast than bone, since the organic matter of a fossil had been transformed into stone over the epochs, bone was a much harder thing to fake convincingly, and this was no rock.

Suddenly, the same butler that had permitted Lucian to enter announced new arrival. A mousey, albeit pretty, young woman who looked positively bewildered to be here, perhaps flustered by her tardy arrival. Her cheeks were as red as Christmas bulbs, and it seemed to be that she’d had enough embarrassment for one day. “Welcome, Mademoiselle Montgomery. Fret not, we had just gotten started. It may be cold outside here, but it is plenty warm in the Congo. Please, join us.” He said, returning his attention to the skull.