"You're not sending me to prison?!" the café waitress asked as she stood before Countess Irena, Tyler, the Animalia Ambassadoria crew, Molly, Darla and Maya.
"As the legal owner of the island, it is well within my rights," Countess Irena said firmly, "as you are trespassing and at least supporting those engaged in other criminal schemes that have related to the use of the island.
The colony tour had been interesting, and mostly based out of some of the circumstances that had come about as Project Mesozoic went public and with Animalia deciding the future Dinotopian colonies, which included Skull Island, a small island off the coast of Florida. It wasn't too much bigger than many of the other small sand bar islands that essentially protected the US east coast from hurricanes, but unlike them, the island was more solid. It had had a firm foundation of bedrock, which was partially why it'd become so important to Spanish trade back in the colonial period. It was sturdy enough that hurricanes wouldn't blow it away as they stormed through, but was also isolated enough that Spain's rivals wouldn't expend resources taking it. Of course, after the US acquired Florida from Spain, the maintenance of the island was apparently forgotten by all sides. This had lead to the discovery that despite the fact that the island went over to the United States with Florida, her ancestors managed to acquire a dead to the island, though it had set unused for years.
"However," Countess Irena commented as she looked to the woman, who stood relatively calmly before them, "You've also done a lot... been partial to upgrades to the island that may be of some benefit to Animalia and the planed Dinotopia Aquatica Colony."
"There might still be some alterations that need to be made," Molly said slowly as she looked around.
She marveled at how this underground mansion was complete with electric lighting, running water and its own water processing plant, which had to indicate how heavily various groups looking for Spanish treasure had invested in the island, especially while Countess Irena was unaware that she owned it. However, she also knew that while Dolichorhynchops wasn't that large and as such her own size was comparable to many other Animalians, other marine reptiles from the Mesozoic Era weren't that small. Elasmosaurus could be over thirty feet long and that had meant that Nessa was incredibly tall. Nessa wasn't as tall as Andrew or Jen, but she was still taller than the stone ceilings that were in the underground mansion. And there were other marine reptiles of similar sizes, like the Pliosaur, Kronosaurus, or the Mosasaur, Tylosaurus, that could be cramped in spaces built for people.
"I didn't actually build the mansion," the woman said slowly.
"Engineers will need to come in and look and see at what alterations will need to be made and whether or not they can be made," Countess Irena commented as she looked around.
The mansion was rather extensive in that it covered much of the island's underground, but it was also arranged in an upside down cone, which meant that the hallway and stairways that lead down to each descending level hand progressively more space above them and in pure theory more of the island to the outside of them. Which likely made sense. If the cave and underground facilities were first built by pirates or outlaws, much of it was likely carved by hand, which meant the massive sort of work that would be needed for a more vertical descent wouldn't have been easy and was likely avoided to save on the time for construction. As the structure was finished things like electricity, running water, and the other amenities that were there were added. A part of Irene was extremely curious into how active the criminals that had been operating in the region if the facility had only been dug out in the eighties, particularly after Tyler said that scavengers looking for Spanish gold/treasure were drawn here for years.
At the bottom of the cone, Irena noticed what looked like a small pool of salt water. There was also anther tunnel that seemed to go out. It was likely an escape tunnel that the criminal groups that had funded the archeological robbery had been attempted at Skull Island. It could likely only be managed by a mini-sub, which the woman they found likely wouldn't have had access to, which was partially why they'd caught her. Apparently the groups that funded the operation, or at least the most critical parts of the operation flew her here when they needed someone to see to things by helicopter. But that was besides the point at the moment.
"But still... this mansion will make things easier for Dinotopia Aquatica," Countess Irena spoke, "a lot of the initial concern was over how to build on the surface of the island... and this underground mansion, with electricity and other amenities makes all of that easier. Sure there may be some modifications that need to be made, but that'll be easier than either starting from scratch or cramming Dinotopians into a very small living space... As such, I'm feeling rather generous. Particularly if you help in dealing with the main criminals provide service to the colony."
"Okay..." the woman answered nervously. She knew that Animalians generally didn't look to violence as their first course of action, that didn't mean that they couldn't if forced to, and being surrounded by several of them, there was a lot of muscle, even on the females, that the woman couldn't overpower.
"To start with, we can inquire as to how successful these "archeologists" were at looting lost treasures from this site," Countess Irena spoke as she looked to the woman.
"All I did was run the mansion like a hotel," the woman answered, "I really wasn't aware on what progress they'd made in their search for gold."
"Did you ever ask them?" Countess Irena asked
"No... I was... more interested in my own safety and my own money," the woman answered.
Countess Irena frowned heavily.
"It's likely that the main treasure isn't on the island or buried in it," Sarah commented, "if they were coming to this island searching for it for years... then it's likely that the actual treasure is on a sunken ship away from the island."
At that, Darla and Maya moved forward at a quick pace, promising they could help. Before anyone could stop them, they stripped down to the swimsuits they'd been wearing underneath their main clothes, in the hopes of seeing what the Atlantic Ocean "tasted" like, and left their outer clothes clothes on the pier at the bottom of the underground mansion. The tunnel that they entered was relatively large, but was also dark as no light could make its way through rock. It also meant that if it was a specialized escape tunnel for a mini-sub, the sub couldn't enter or exit at high speed in order to let its sonar guide it in and out. As uplifted Coelacanths, however, Darla and Maya didn't have sonar and had to use their hands to feel their way down the tunnel.
They covered a fair amount of distance before making their way out into the Atlantic beyond the island, though they didn't know exactly how far they actually travelled. However, as they emerged from the tunnel into the open ocean, they found the area much lighter. The water wasn't quite as clear as the shallow waters around Mieni, but there was enough light that they could see fairly clearly as they swam out. They soon began to swim out to sea in the general direction of Spain, periodically surfacing just to enough to check their position to Skull Island. They actually didn't get too far before they spotted a large ship sitting on the ocean floor, and they swam toward it.
They found it to be a large galleon laying on its side. The wooden masts for the sails were broken off and the shudders for cannon on one side were open. Darla and Maya swam closer and found that the ship seemed to have lost its rudder. They found a wooden piece at the rear of the galleon that looked as though it'd been snapped by some great force and pulled away from the ship. They made their way up to the ship and looked in through the openings. The could see crates and boxes inside the ship, but there as enough silt that they couldn't quite tell what the ship was carrying at first. They swam in through one of the open doors for cannon to get a closer look. They found that once under water the cannon had broken their ropes and fell to the bottom with the boxes and crates spaced among them. Some carried large iron balls, likely for the cannon, but to their surprise, they found that one had a large number of coins in it, which they guessed was the treasure that this Medellin Cartel was after.
They ran a few more looks over the ship, finding the name Orgullo de Fernando painted in gold colored lettering on the ship's bow before returning to the surface.
"I think we found what all those "illegal archeologists" were looking for," Maya commented.
Darla nodded and turned back toward Skull Island, and found that they hadn't gone too far out to sea. In fact the island was still easily in sight
"Yeah," Darla agreed, "Let's go back and tell the others!"
And they were eager to share what they'd found. They'd heard about how the fish Animalians at Mieni had discovered the USS Pennsylvania, scuttled after the atomic bomb tests after WW2 and at a time when Mieni was technically part of another island grouping. They'd found that story fairly interesting and now they had something to share that was on par with all that. Finding a Spanish treasure ship that had likely gone down in a storm back during the age of sail. They also wondered what would happen with the ship, but they also figured that the ship and its contents would go to the proper authorities and owners.