I ignored the nattering little dryad as I continued to run towards the thunder drake territory to the west, keeping my senses at full alert. The goblins were more prevalent in this direction, but I avoided them with ease. Much more prevalent. I bypassed at least a few clusters of fifty to a hundred or more of the filthy creatures. I was sorely tempted to plunge into the depths of those groups and just lay waste to them all. I couldn’t really explain or rationalize it, but I wanted so very badly to destroy their vile existences.

Dendra had grown uncharacteristically silent as I passed through the goblin held territories.

As dusk rolled around, I finally approached the area that the dryad had been directing me toward. The thunder drakes wouldn’t be active again until the morning, most likely. I could have gone to sleep, but sleep had always been more of a luxury than a necessity. I could function just fine for many days on end without sleeping, especially in these most recent weeks as I’d continued to grow and change. If anything, the night presented an opportunity.

As I’d learned with wyverns, it is far easier to hunt a flying creature in its nest than it is to take it when it is out hunting. My only concern now was the electrical ability of the thunder drakes. While Dendra had described it as a less powerful form of lightning, James’ memories had translated that to mean it was some sort of electrical attack. Once more, I found his memories somewhat useful. Although he was not exactly—as was called in his world— an electrical engineer or a physicist, he still knew a fair bit about how the strange power worked. Most importantly: it would follow the path of least resistance to the ground, where it would dissipate.

I waited for dusk to fade into night, then crept into the nesting area with all due caution. The nests themselves were all well removed from each other, no closer than several hundred yards. I stalked toward the closest one, where a large female slept curled around three juveniles. I studied them as I closed in.

The adult was about fifteen feet in length, from nose to tail. She had four limbs, arranged in the same way a smaller lizard’s would be. In fact, aside from the wings, it looked very much like an oversized monitor lizard. The ‘wings’ of the thunder drake were somewhat interesting, as they were not true wings like you would find on a bird or a bat or even a wyvern. They were more like fins from a fish; thin, elastic membranes spread between spines of bony material. Even from a distance, I could sense a concentration of magic aura in the wings, which suggested that their ability to fly was assisted by their inherent magic abilities. Along the flanks of the beast, there was a patch of scales that contrasted to the rest, a light whitish silver color as opposed to the dull gray of the rest of its body, and I could also sense a concentration of magic aura there as well. On the head of the beast were two small and stubby horns, with the same whitish silver coloring as the flanks, but there was less magic concentrated in these.

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I approached the sleeping thunder drake family, moving with all the stealth and grace I could muster. Thankfully, the dryad was being uncharacteristically silent. Taking an idea from James’ memories, I gently leaned my weapon against the thunder drake’s side. The deep and even breathing of the sleeping form did not change, so I felt certain that it was still asleep. I then moved into position by its neck, and struck at the softer scales of the underside with my tail as hard as I could, piercing its hide with a handful of quills.

The thunder drake spasmed as it woke, all the muscles in its neck responding to the wyvern quill venom. I felt a building of magic aura in the flank closest to me, and a sense of some other kind of energy building that I was not yet personally familiar with, then it dissipated instantly, and my club turned war hammer sparked as the electrical discharge passed through it and into the ground. Before it could charge up another attack, I moved quickly to rip its throat open with my claws, then jumped over the weakly spasming neck to land amidst the juvenile thunder drakes and lashed out with my tail, paralyzing each of them in turn before I focused back on their mother. Her eyes were already unfocused, and I could sense that she was in the throes of death as her lifeblood drained away and the wyvern quill’s poison spread through her body.

I relaxed a bit then, and took a moment to end the little ones.

With the thunder drakes dead, Dendra chose to speak up. “That was clever, using that troll bone to direct the thunder attack into the ground. How’d you come up with that?”

“Electricity seeks easiest path to ground. Troll bone has metal in it, makes easy path.”

The diminutive dryad form looked up at me from her perch on the root necklace. “And how did you know that?”

I ignored the question, and picked up the war hammer, looking it over. While it had served its purpose, it seemed that the energies involved were too great for it to handle without damage. The bone was smoking and blackened, and the metallic latticework patterns on the surface appeared distorted. I squeezed my hand tight on it, and could hear the material creaking and cracking a bit, where before it would have not made any sound. It would probably break the next time it struck something with any real force. This annoyed me greatly, but I lacked an outlet to express so. I tossed the weapon aside. I needed something new.

My mood soured by the loss of my weapon, I set upon the corpses before me and devoured them. Aside from the crunchy scales, the meal was relatively boring. It took the better part of an hour for me to devour the thunder drakes’ bodies, constantly tearing away chunks and shoving them in my mouth.

Once I was done, I withdrew from the nesting site, and looked for a safe place to rest while I integrated the traits of the thunder drakes I had consumed.