--- Kat ---
Kat and Lily shared a look of concern. *Ok this is potentially a bigger issue then I thought it would be. I'm not saying that I want to skip out or anything... but will you be ok if you come along?*
[Kat I will be fine. From the sounds of things whatever hatches from the egg will be mindless and I trust you to protect me from something like that. Though... I do have to wonder why it took so long to 'gestate' I suppose?]
*Good question...* "We both still have a lot of questions..." started Kat.
"Well that is what I'm here for," Miznark cut in to say.
"Right... so we were wondering why it took so long for the egg to hatch?" asked Kat.
Miznark shrugged, "Who can say. There are all sorts of guesses but nobody really knows. I can share them of course. Um... so the favourite guess is that there just wasn't enough powerful life around. Something so corrupted by demonic energy needs a lot of fuel to burn if it wants to get stronger.
"Now most don't... but this drake seems like the type of thing that is going to push higher rather than just lash out at it's starting Rank. Something you probably don't know, is that demonically corrupted stuff like this drake? They can forcibly increase their rank by consuming other powerful lifeforms.
"It's not something you can do without corruption, and even for the corrupted entity in question it's still not a good idea... they just don't know that. See, when you absorb lifeforce like that? Eventually you just explode," Miznark said, adding in a shadow explosion over on of their hands for emphasis.
"Now this is very much not a good thing for us because it'd be a large explosion, one that not only has the chance to blow up the planet, but spread a bunch of demonic energy around. So yeah really not something we want to encourage.
"Ok where was I? Yes the 'why now'. The top guess is that there is now a sufficient amount of 'strong' lifeforms around for it to devour. Possibly enough for it to get to the point it can devour the planet if it was left unchecked.
You won't have to worry too much, it'll still take time to build up to that point, but you at least have an idea of what could happen if we left it unchecked for a decade or so. Trust me, we're trying to be on top of this whole thing.
"Then there's the treaty issues. If we weren't fudging the summoning we'd have to actually inform the Angels about the operation and we've got all sorts of reasons not to want to do that. It's a massive pain just... interacting with those things and even if we get one of the better ones?
We'll have to call in someone powerful enough to just TALK to the Angels without using a messenger, or risking someone frying from a particularly heated glare. So yeah... really hoping to avoid that sort of attention,"
*It sounds like avoiding Angel notice is the biggest reason for dragging Kamiko along. I'm not sure how I feel about that. It would be nice to spend some time with her... but this will put her in danger. As much as they might argue that it's safe... unless. Who do you think will be watching our vitals?*
[It's gotta be Nira right? I mean, she's got the skills for it... and if she's hooked up to something to help boost that... I can't see how Nira would allow any of this to go on without her being involved, and if she's the watcher she's got the final say to keep her daughter alive, well and the rest of us hopefully as well.]
*Yeah... sounds like it. I wonder if we can ask? Or would it be best not to let on our suspicions.*
[Probably best not to mention it for now. We can always ask Nira herself] For some reason, that triggered a thought in Kat. "Question... how soon are we meant to leave for this mission?"
"Likely tomorrow or the day after depending on when everything is finalised," answered Miznark.
*Really not what I wanted to hear... on the other hand it's literally the end of the world. Not mine, but still.* Kat let out a sigh. She still had questions, but they didn't seem as important as the ones she'd already asked. Even cycling through quite a few of them Kat could see they would lead to mostly irrelevant answers, or 'I don't know' as the answer. Still Kat had to try a few.
"So we're expected to go in and kill this thing... how dangerous is it?"
"We're not really sure..." admitted Miznark. "We've got calculations and historical data to back things up, but the real issue is any special abilities it might have. We suspect, that by the time you three find it, the drake in question shall be newly Rank 3 or at the top of Rank 2. Something you should be able to deal with... unless it has a powerful ability but there's no way to know,"
"Why is this 'a drake or dragon'" asked Lily. "Surely you would know?"
"By technical definition a drake is a close relative of true dragons and is defined by its lack of sentience. We personally suspect that the egg in question WAS a dragon egg, but with all the demonic energy corrupting it there's no way it's sentient anymore, even if it might have had the chance to be originally,"