There was a rumbling sound, and the ground under Wolf shook, he figured it must be a tremor, and raised his knife once more, eyeing the sleeping bundle for a moment before getting a Schrodinger to the face. He pulled the cat thing free (taking a good chunk of skin from his face in the process, and hurled it clear. The little cat construct got up, and hissed, then things went to hell in a handbasket.

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Grark was confused, Grark did not like to be confused, it made their head hurt, and hurty heads make for a grumpy Grark. First off a pack of little rodents had run in all in one big cluster out of nowhere. That was fine by itself, they didn’t bother Grark. Then the pack of rats had moved away all at once to reveal a frizzy hairless monkey, that too was fine, maybe they’d be strong enough to throw Grarks stick, fetch was fun. Then they had started acting weird round the hairless monkey, that was strange, and less OK, but Grark was new at this, how was Grark supposed to know what was normal between monkey things? Grark wasn’t about to get judgemental.

Then they threw cute fuzzyfriend........... THIS WAS NOT OK, FUZZYFRIEND PROTECT HAIRLESS MONKEY GIRL, SO NEW MONKEY MUST WANT TO9 HURT HAIRLESS MONKEY GIRL

Now Grark did not know much about this strange new world, that had such monkeys in it. But Grark did know monkey girl friend. Monkey girl look after fuzzyfriend, and monkey girl wake Grark up after long nap in stone. Grark might not remember much of time sleeping in stone, but Grark remembered their nose being itchy the whole time. So after much thought Grark stood up. Schrodinger clambering to their head smugly, like a kid who just called on their big brother in a fight.

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Wolf was confused too, had the scenery just moved? Also that glowy thing in front of him looked worryingly familiar. Something in his inner brain labelled survival ID’ed the thing as an eye. But then panic quickly pointed out that eyes came in pairs, and weren’t usually bigger than he was. Survival then chimed in to suggest that maybe he should look off to one side, and that maybe the reason for the big eye was it was in an even bigger head, with teeth, and it would quite like to start running now, if you don’t mind.

Panic hit the play possum button as hard as it could, and it took a few moments before survival slapped it across the face hard and overruled the possum button, before reaching for two levers, one perfectly maintained and clearly well used labelled fight, the other practically rusted solid with neglect. It was labelled flight. Panic took one look to the right, panicked, (of course) and quickly started throwing themselves at the flight lever, lending survival all the adrenaline it had saved up if it would just get them the hell out of this mess. Survival threw the entire damn bucket on the flight lever and between the two Wolf for the first time in their life wised up and started running.

He ducked behind every stalagmite in his path, desperately seeking cover. But it seemed the massive thing chasing him was not slowing down for such things. All cover was quickly obliterated, but still he ran. He was going to get out of here, but there was no way in hell he could fight that thing, so he settled for making his way towards the exit tunnel as fast as his legs could carry him (which it turns out when there’s an angry protodragon behind you is usually fast enough to make an Olympic sprinter reconsider their career choices.)

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A little voice in Grark’s head started jumping up and down for attention, and suggesting that maybe Grark had options if he wanted to stop this damned monkey from escaping. It started messing with Grark’s magicode, until it reminded Grark of the strange glowy rock. Maybe Grark could make glowyrock to block door.

Deep inside Grark the magic code started to stir, Grark could try to understand it or Grark could just do it. So in the end just doing it made more sense.

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Wolf couldn’t believe his luck, he was outrunning the godsdamned giant lizard and the exit was now in sight, he was going to make i........ wait a second, was the big lizard glowing?

Survival tried to squeeze more speed out by pointing out THERE WAS A BLOODY DRAGON BEHIND THEM, but even for adrenaline there are limits. Still maybe they would make it.

At that moment the damn lizard stopped glowing, and a big ass glowing rock manifested in the general vicinity of the ceiling. Before taking the oh so helpful advice of gravity and crashing to earth, effectively cratering the exit.

At this point the flight lever finally gave out, and the almighty possum button took control once more. Survival sighed. Well it had been a good run, maybe next time they’d manifest in something with half a brain. The last thing Wolf remembered was a GULP.

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Now given the whole fossil deal at this point in time you are probably asking yourself how the hell that even works. Fact is that between a regular dragon, and a fossil protodragon with a glowing mana core in the middle when it comes to what happens after the gulp the end result is pretty much the same. (Bar the whole gamut of messy digestive details that beings like Grark no longer had to concern themselves with, and the resultant cleanup of course.)

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Alyvyn looked at the chaos that had just happened incredulously. Had Grark just grabbed a guy in a poodle suit, and eaten him after using magic? What the hell was even going on.

She quickly reached out via the Ethereal network and asked Grark about this.

“Fluffy monkey came in here and hurt Fuzzyyfriend, Grark protect.” Came the reply.

Alyvyn debated for a moment on the ethics of rogue constructs, with draconic strength and magic, and no control interface for human beings. Oh and no safety measures, she couldn’t forget that little detail. Then pondered that it had been used on somebody who hurt Schrodinger, on reflection she was perfectly OK with that.