Midnight Erebus's Bestiary, Page 3

The Green Dragons
The Children of Erdan
 
Dragons are typically intelligent creatures. They are born as fledglings with small wings, transforming into humanoid forms with their reach the age of 10. These forms then grow like most humanoids until the age of 50 at which they begin shifting into brutish creatures until they fully morph into the four-legged creatures that most stories are familiar with. They often get mistaken for the Draconians as their humanoid forms are identical until this shifting and some dragons are even born from pure Draconian blood, but they are creatures all of their own. Much of the world hunts dragons because within each of their hearts is a stone of pure crystalized mana that only grows with age. This is what gives particularly large mana stones their other name, Dragonstone.
 
For our part we would rarely hunt dragons, but we had received a request from the more human-centric lands of Mercia about attacks by a pack of six that utilized acid breath and necromatic magic. Typically this would be outside the scope of our activities. We are monster hunters, not mercenaries getting involved in the wars or conflicts of other countries. The descriptions of these dragons sent chills down our spines however. These dragons were described as constantly rampaging without end, flesh melting and dripping off them before rapidly regenerating as they went. There is a green dragon by the name of Erdan who is known throughout the world to dabble in Necromancy and unleash his experiments on parts of the world, then study the results.... and it was known that he had a group of six children that he was not at all happy with. The exact reason why wasn't known, only that he was spotted chasing each of them down.
 
We took the job after we realized the likely connection and sent six teams there. Myself and the group I hunted down the ice banshee with was among them. We traveled south to the mage city of Vance to arrange a teleportation given the importance of quick action here and soon after we were in the temperate climes of Mercia. Specifically in a its capital which was in poor shape as its surrounding farm villages were afraid to ship any goods with the dragons roaming around. Each team split off in a different direction to find each dragon. We found ours to the south not far from the capital. In fact it was heading in that direction already before it stopped to try and eat us.
 
Dragons are notoriously dodgy to fight. Younger ones will almost never land willingly, instead opting to unleash magic and their breath from the sky. This makes grounding them incredibly vital. Usually the most important tool in this arsenal are enchanted bolas that extend in size when they strike their target, wrapping around and restraining them. Unfortunately, they're particularly heavy and not acid proof. Not normally a huge problem when we have time to prepare, but our first contact with the creature was it swooping in and breathing acid all along the path. All of us only survived by diving off of the wagon. We couldn't even save the horses, which let me tell you, watching a living creature slowly melt right in front of your eyes, its flesh slowly peeling away into acid bleached bone? Not a pleasant sight.
 
Still, I was young and reckless, especially after my hunt with the ice banshee. Rage burned in my blood at the thought that my companions could die here. So when it made its next pass, I unleashed shadow tendrils from my arms to wrap around it's tail and was carried off into the sky. There was a rush of adrenaline at being pulled airborne. The dragon seemed to not even feel my presence as it continued attacking below and its dripping flesh smacking against my face as I slowly unleashed more tendrils to slowly pull myself towards its body. Thinking back, I count myself lucky that it seemed to completely lack a sense of touch in its undead state. Perhaps it was due to the constantly melting flesh of its own. Such a feeling would create such agony that even if it was able to feel anything, there would be only pain.
 
Eventually I reached onto the disgusting gooey back of the beast and wrapped shadow tendrils around each of its wings and used them to pull its wings together. This resulted in the loss of control in its flight and we both slammed into the ground. I was sent flying and tried to use a cushion of shadow magic around me to stop my fall but I felt cracking in my ribs and lost my concentration before soon going unconscious. When I awoke, it was near a bonfire as the rest of my team was burning the body of the beheaded dragon while Kalolin treated my wounds. At least briefly. She was apparently not too happy with me as she punched me right in the snout as I woke up and I went unconscious again for a moment before waking in a bed back home in the Banshee Mountains village. Kalolin was watching over me and after screaming at me for about an hour about how reckless and stupid I was she told me what had happened after I brought the dragon down.
 
Hargak had rushed the creature immediately and chopped its head off with his enchanted axe and using a bit of size changing magic himself to make the task easier. Honestly didn't know he could do that, but then I never learned his magic specialization before this point. It definitely explains why he has always been able to move around large amount of mead casks so quickly when he's helping out in his father's tavern. The dragon's head however was still alive however. It was helpless in this state but it had whispered two words. "Kill me." Kalolin's magic was able to remove the undead taint from its head and then they decided to set fire to the body. The skull was kept as proof of the kill along with a green dragonstone with black veins running through it. Last I heard about it was that it was placed in a barrel of holy water with the five others, changed daily, to cleanse the taint out of them. Chances are we either sold them or used them to enchant jewelry after the purification process was completed.