The Cryptozoicologist
by Ian Tullis
Answer: RAIDERS
The flavor text points teams at the World of Warcraft trading card game; the SPECTRAL, SALTWATER, etc words come from the names of animal mounts. These point the solver at which animal puzzles "feed" this mini-meta: Spectral TIGER, Saltwater Snapjaw the TURTLE. The ally that goes with each mount has a first name seven letters long. For each animal, find a "feeder" answer that's an ally's last name; all these allies are from the Scourgewar set. To extract the answer, write down the first part of the ally's name and take the 1st letter from the first, 2nd letter from the 2nd, etc.
| Word | Item | Mount | "Feeder" | Rest of Ally's name |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SPECTRAL | Reins of the Swift Spectral Tiger | Spectral Tiger | ?????? | ??????? |
| WOOLY WHITE | Wooly White Rhino | Wooly White Rhino | DARKSTRIDER | HARANTO |
| GHOSTLY | Ghastly Charger's Skull [Horse] | Ghostly Charger | GRAVECALLER | WHITNEY |
| MOTTLED | Mottled Drake [Dragon] | Mottled Drake | THE IMPURE | VINDRON |
| SALTWATER | Riding Turtle | Saltwater Snapjaw | ROFFE | PETREUS |
| EL POLLO | Magic Rooster Egg [Chicken] | El Pollo Grande | FLAMEWAKER | GREGORY |
| THE RED | Big Battle Bear | The Red Bearon | WORTH | CHARLES |
Filling in the blanks suggests the word RAIDERS, which is indeed the right answer.
To deduce the Tiger answer, we need a Scourgewar ally whose first name starts with R and is seven letters long. Only Rukdara Dreadhand fits the bill. So the Tiger must be DREADHAND.