1.08: Fake Or Fortune

Jungle Ruin
1.08: Fake Or Fortune

“As I’m sitting on the edge of my bed, I hear Marguerite startle herself awake. I think being out here in the jungle is starting to give these new explorers nightmares.

“Today is the the first of two days we are going to analyze our excavation findings and see if these are authentic or not. I’ll take them back out one more time tomorrow and the next day. Then we’ll analyze again and spend our final moments here with a team party or something.

“It seems everyone was able to dig up something or another. As they are not expertise in this and I am, I decide to do all the work and let them watch…or do whatever they feel like doing. I am getting to know more about this team each day and find some of it enjoyable and other parts I find humorous.

“I’m able to get through all seven of my team’s findings with a little light outside left. It’s late enough to where we can eat, and then I want to show them one more thing I hope they can take in and enjoy…”

I couldn’t sleep much. I wanted to go back to the temple. There was still so much to explore. But I wanted to give my team a day of rest and go over what we’ve found the last few days of excavating.

Plus, I think my team was starting to have nightmares. Well, some of them. As I was sitting on my bed daydreaming about the temple, Marguerite was muttering in her sleep about spiders and she quickly woke up and jumped out of bed brushing herself off as if she was just attacked by them. Poor Marguerite.

I have her sit next to me. I remind her we are not going out today to go excavating or exploring. Everyone took a lot in yesterday.

Vincent was concocting his own breakfast.

Everyone else seemed to want something simple like cereal or yogurt… and sandwiches.

I sit next to Vincent and ask if he’s ready to check out his findings and authenticate any findings. He was more into eating his eggs.

I check out one of the skulls I found first. I cleaned it up and examined it closely. Having done research in the past, I find that this skull isn’t of the Omiscan culture. It’s probably from some poor soul who didn’t last in the jungle. However, it was still a fascinating find.

I called the team over and asked them to grab all their excavation findings.

It looked like Vincent was interested after all, so I started with his. He had found a Death Relic Base. Earlier in the week, I had found a relic that looked like they could fit into this base. I attach the bottom of the Relic Base to the Totecallama Relic and there is a glow to it as it snaps into place. I give it back to Vincent telling him it could be worth a good chunk if he wanted to sell it to a museum, but recommend he keep it as a souvenir finding from his jungle adventure.

Next up is Antwan with an Omiscan Mask he had discovered. I look at it very carefully. I dust it off ever so gently. I believe it to be authentic, but I want to do more analysis on it and ask Antwan if I could keep it. I told him he could keep the skull I found if he wanted it. There’s no real value to it, but he could tell his friends it came from the jungle adventure he went on.

Marguerite wanted to know if the knife she found was authentic or not. So I decided to investigate her finding next. As I’m measuring and checking it out, I notice she is a little close in my personal space. She’s really curious about this knife. When I finish, I can tell this isn’t real. It is probably from a souvenir shop and ended up getting buried. When I tell Marguerite my results, she just stares at me. I give it back to her. Luckily the blade is dull.

It was lunchtime now. We would finish the rest after. I made the team some BLTs and fries. I think they were all happy with my choice of lunch.

I ask Vincent if he’s feeling okay cause he doesn’t look so good. He says he’s just a little hot and it’ll pass.

. . .

After lunch, I ask Misty if she has anything that should be analyzed. She shows me a relic she found. In my research, this is a Zazatototl Relic. Like Vincent’s, it needs a base to be put on. She says she doesn’t have one.

I ask the rest of the team if thy have one. Mindy says she has a square base thingy like the one Vincent had. I ask Mindy if she wouldn’t mind letting Misty have it so we can connect the two and she can have a souvenir for home or try and sell it at a museum. Mindy was nice enough to share because she had something else as well.

Then I fuse the two together. I don’t think Misty will sell this. She said she’s a collector.

I ask Mindy what else she had. She showed me something was largely covered in mud and dirt. This could be anything from a child’s toy or from someone’s trip out in the jungle to an actual treasure. Let’s find out.

I find a chisel on the workbench and get to work.

After a few minutes, Mindy decided to grab a book while she waited. I guess she didn’t realize this was going to take some time. I’m no magician and can make appear what’s inside this lump of clay and dirt instantly. If it is a treasure, I don’t want to destroy it in the process.

After about an hour into working, I discover it’s a knife similar to Marguerite’s. I do some analysis on it and with the carvings and some other details, I see this is a real thing. Obviously, I am not going to tell Marguerite about this.

I call Mindy back over and tell her my findings. As she’s an archaeologist in training, I think it would be nice for her to have something like this for her collection. She said she’s gone on other explorations, but I bet she’s never found something like this. I recommend that she practice later analysing this a little further on her own.

I suggest to Mindy as well not to mention this to Marguerite. I have this feeling Marguerite would switch them around when no one would be looking.

Next up was Rickie. He found a skull. As I work on seeing if this one is authentic Omiscan skull or perhaps just another unlucky tourist, he says we need jungle music in this place.

Then he heads over to the radio and changes the station and starts dancing to it. I guess Rickie has his own jungle dance.

I finish up on the analysis of Rickie’s skull finding. I call him back over from his dance workout. Luckily for me, this was not a real Omiscan skull. I give it to Rickie and tell him this might look good for his bedroom or maybe buried back up somewhere. I’m really not sure what a guy like Rickie would do with a skull.

Last, but certainly not least, was Adrian. She had dug up a mask that looked like it came off from an Omiscan. Let’s find out.

It seems Adrian was was interested enough to stick around and watch me. She’s been off by herself recently and I was happy to have her company.

Her demeanor changed after about a half hour of me analysing this mask. I could see it in her face.

I put a smile back on her face when I finished my results. I didn’t tell Adrian this was authentic, but I also didn’t say it was a fake. I wanted her to hopefully keep it and one day find out on her own. She’s still a youngin’ in her teenage years. She can show it off to her friends for now. Maybe when she gets older, she’ll find out it’s real and value it or sell it for what it’s worth.

I call my team together and tell them I have one more thing planned for today. As it’s getting late, we’ll eat dinner first.

Author’s Note: As the non-controlled sims didn’t approach the workbench themselves, I transferred their excavation findings to the controlled sim, Fox Fever, and then used the workbench. After, I moved the artifacts back to the uncontrolled sims.