Tommy, Antonio, Ruth, and Riley slid down across the hill and saw Maggie with Ringo and the pylon in one piece. The platform that had surrounded them conveniently formed into a hole that buried itself.

As Maggie and Ringo sat, wondering what to do, they looked over and saw the other party arrived to check up on them. Riley and Ringo joyfully reunited while Maggie went to check up on the guys.

“Is that you? Are you ok?” Maggie called out from a distance.

“Yeah, we are,” Tommy replied sheepishly.

“That’s great to hear! So, uh, whatever happened to that...?”

“Beats me, not sure if we’ll ever see it again...”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just a feeling, I suppose?” Tommy shrugged in confusion. He wasn’t sure what happened, either.

“Well, we can finally go towards the pylon,” Ruth mentioned. “So, let’s get moving!”

“But wait,” Maggie stopped him. “What about Ringo and Riley? They won’t be able to fit in there.”

Tommy's face lit up as he had an idea. “Maybe they can just wait here until we come back?”

“They could escort us back to our village and guard it until we return,” Ruth added.

“Well, I don’t know, only if they’re ok with it...” Maggie pondered. She looked over at the Thescelotitans. “What do you think?” Ringo and Riley nodded in agreement, which made the girl sigh with content. “All right then, please be careful, we’ll be back real soon,” Maggie told them with a smile.

.-.-.-.

Upon entering the second pylon, Ruth’s jaw slacked down in utter shock at the scenery.

“Wow, this looks a lot bigger and hollow than it does on the outside...”

“Uh, huh.” Antonio rolled his eyes, not impressed with what the bear had to say.

The Orso Looba ignored him and continued to explore with awe. Eventually, the group found the control pad. Ruth inspected the device.

“So the legends were true, this exists!”

“’Legends’? You know about this?” Tommy glanced at the bear and asked.

“Well, yeah, I knew about this from my gran...” Ruth’s voice trailed off before he could finish the sentence. As the bear noticed everyone looked at him in confusion, he just scratched the back of his head and sighed. “Uh, never mind. Sorry, I didn’t mean to make things awkward.”

“It’s ok,” Maggie replied, patting him on the back.

Tommy and Maggie both activated the portal using the gem control panel. Almost everyone got ready to jump into the vortex; Antonio stood there briefly, staring at the palm of his hand, sighing to himself sadly before joining the others.

.-.-.-.

Antonio, Ruth, Maggie, and Tommy all arrived out of the portal and landed on some rocky terrain. There seemed to be a lot of craters and cracks on the ground they stood on. Covered with a thick, low-lying fog that obscured most of the surrounding area, there was no telling what other things got hidden by the mist.

Ruth had a hunch he had seen this place before, as it looked familiar to him, while the others had no clue where they were.

Before the crew could take a single step, they all noticed the flying dinosaurs above them in the sky, launching themselves downward. The four ducked out of the way just before the dinosaurs could snatch and grab them at their sharp feet.

“Whoa, that was close...” Tommy sighed in relief.

“Uh oh, we need to keep moving,” Ruth warned, looking up. “Those Echinosauropteryx don’t look friendly...”

“So, that’s what they are?” Maggie asked.

“Yeah, pretty sure that’s what they are,”

Maggie checked on her crystal radar and saw that the device didn’t make lights or sounds. There was no standing around if the signal didn’t go off.

“W—We better tread carefully,” Antonio said worriedly. “Those seem very suspicious.”

“Yeah, I’ll say,” Tommy replied. “One false move, and we could end up in their nest, or worse...”

Antonio felt relieved that, for the first time in a while, his friend agreed with him on something and didn’t ignore his warning.

As everyone walked around, one of them couldn’t help but hear some strange sounds. Tommy looked down on the ground the four stood on as it was breaking apart. Before he could tell the news to the others, everyone ended up falling through, screaming along the way.