Cara spread her wings and flew up to rest on top of the wagon’s cover, while Tessa packed up the netting, rolling it to the front so it could be quickly unrolled the next evening.
“Everyone be ready. In under a kilometre, we are going to meet up with a drake leading a group of sand coloured Yeti things. They’re all Ascended Rank, but there are over a dozen of them, and I don’t know their powers.” Karl explained.
Their guards altered positions, with the Lamia joining the Naga Warriors on each side of the Wagon, while Dana came to the front to sit with Karl and Ophelia went to the back of the wagon to bother Lotus for snacks.
Her supply was running low, and the Nature Cleric could make an incredible trail mix.
[Incoming. The Drake is ignoring me, so the whole group is coming for you.] Hawk reported.
[That’s a good thing, keep scouting. I think that Cara should be able to deal with a Drake.]
Cara thought that was a great idea. She had seen Drakes before, but not for some time, and she hadn’t been doing a lot of flying. If she could have a flying badger fight with the Drake, it would be a good way to keep her wings in shape and burn off some of the extra kilos that she had been gaining as she relaxed in her space.
Once they had spotted the group, the Commander Rank Drake led his group of what Karl was tentatively calling Sand Yeti in a full-frontal attack.
They might have just arrived here, but they understood the essentials of dealing with a merchant wagon. They had fanned out to keep Karl from flanking them and making them chase Thor.
“We will send all the golems and bodyguards forward this time. I want to know what these Sand Yeti can do before we face ones that are closer to our level. If the incident is similar to the ones in the Golden Dragon Nation, it will be almost all similar groups of creatures at different power levels.” Karl insisted.
It was good logic, and nobody argued as he pulled the wagon to a stop and the summoned guards fanned out to defend the team.
The others held back for a moment, preparing to go anywhere that needed assistance, but the Bodyguards were all Royal Rank against Ascended Sand Yeti.
The monsters all started with the same attack, a fast-moving arc of sand that reminded Karl of Rend, but in elemental form.
The pair of lamias counterattacked, nullifying the attacks with [Rend] as [Flaming Body] flickered over their scales.
The Drake roared and took a deep breath to attack, but Cara was already in motion.
Karl had expected the small badger to square off with the much larger scaled attacker, but at the last second she barrel-rolled and passed under the Drake, which howled in pain.
[That’s what you get for having bad breath, stupid. Oh, you don’t like that, I’ll punch you in the dick.]
Karl had to resist laughing as the Drake fell from the sky with a mournful howl of pain.
First, Cara had raked the sensitive inner thighs with her claws, then she followed up with the promised nut shot, and the Drake was out of the battle, though it was not severely injured.
The Drake hit the ground with a puff of dirt, and Cara landed on his back to pull his wings back, straining the tendons as she pulled upwards with her claws dug into the base of its wing bones.
The scaled beast lurched to its feet, twisting and bucking in an attempt to shake the creature free, while Cara rode its back like a rodeo cowboy.
“The badger is insane.” Dana noted.
Karl wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “She’s just having fun. Don’t forget, at least one of our team members can talk to the creature if it’s willing to speak. We might actually learn something about where they came from if we don’t kill it immediately.”
The Copper Drake sent a plume of corrosive breath in front of itself, then ran inside. Under normal circumstances, that would cripple an attacker and force them to let go.
But being attacked by Cara was no normal circumstance, and the corrosive breath only irritated her, encouraging her to pull harder on the wings until eventually the drake gave up and lay still on the ground, defeated and prepared to face death.
“Someone ask our volunteer where they were before they came here. I want to know where they came from and why.” Karl demanded.
The Naga Warrior closest to the Drake relayed the message in Serpent, which all Dragon related species should speak.
At first, the Drake didn’t respond, and Karl realized that there was something more wrong with it than the claws in its wing bones. Like a cloud had come over its mind, the Drake had no problem leading its subordinates into combat, but it couldn’t understand questions, though it obviously heard them.
They tried for a few more minutes, thinking it was just being stubborn, before Cara decided to try [Nullify] on it. That had some effect, and the Drake began to swear at them, irate that it was being tortured.
“Oh, now you can hear us. Where were you before today, and how did you get here?” Karl demanded, letting the Naga Warrior translate.
The drake actually looked confused for a few seconds, trying to find an answer to that before madness descended over its eyes again, and it went back to roaring gibberish and trying to attack the Naga Warriors.
[Nullify didn’t completely remove the madness on it. It’s part of them. I think that they might be golems, or something like it.] Cara theorized, right before the Naga Warrior killed the irate Drake by beheading.
Cara claimed the body, while Rae claimed the head as a decoration, then they all came out to examine the other bodies.
The tan fur of the yeti was coarse like sandstone and thick. They hadn’t seemed to suffer from the heat, unlike the regular variety, but they were similar in powers, but with their Element changed.
Hawk ordered them all brought into his space after examination. Sand magic was different, and the bird had a theory that one of them could learn new skills using the monster parts as part of a recipe.
It was bothering him that they weren’t getting cool new things. Karl had gotten new abilities, and they had advanced, but it didn’t have a huge obvious effect on their combat power like Hawk would have preferred.
“The bodyguards are savage. The Yeti didn’t even have a chance to defend themselves, and the bodyguards weren’t using proper skills. It’s like their power is higher than it should be, but not like it has gone up a Rank. Like, the base ability has increased.
They’re still limited in maximum power output, but they’re on an entirely different level compared to most living things.” Dana explained, unsure how to explain what she was thinking.
“I think I get what you mean. Their skills are definitely Royal Rank skills, but their bodies are more like those group leaders in the dungeon. They’re tougher and faster than they should be. A grade higher in quality than a regular living thing.” Karl agreed.
Dana nodded. “Exactly like that. There should be some way to learn that ability to increase base stats, but I don’t know how.”