Kaldalis took his time picking along the trail. The game trail itself still showed signs of the creature’s passing as the brush and branches still flicked back from whatever had pushed them out of the way, but as he followed he started to notice other signs as well. He started to recognize the rough size and shape of footprints in the low foliage on the ground, and then started to notice areas near the footprints that were wet. The creature must have come from the stream, leaving a trail of water behind.

Now that he knew what to look for, he was able to keep following the creature even when the trail forked, leaving no obvious answer to its next direction. Following the wet pawprints of the appropriate size led him to a clearing, a small area with a floor of ankle-height leafy brush. Kaldalis wasn’t certain what kept the trees out of this place, giving a clear view of the blue sky, but as he crouched at the end of the game trail, he spotted his quarry.

It was about four feet high at the shoulder, quadrupedal, and at least nine feet long from nose to tail. It had blue-green scales, just barely too blue to be camouflage for the jungle, but also just barely too green to be camouflage for an aquatic environment. Its tail was almost two feet long, but was thick, as were the rest of its limbs. It was heavily built, with broad shoulders and thick limbs. Despite its reptilian appearance, its eyes were on the front of its head like a mammalian predator. Its snout was stubby compared to what he expected, but he didn’t need to see it open its mouth to know it would be filled with sharp, serrated teeth.

As he watched, the creature climbed atop a boulder and stretched out, sunning itself. Despite the distance he had followed it, its clawed feet were still wet, and as it settled in on the warm rock, water continued to dribble from them onto the stone. Impossible, but there had to be a reason.

Without a quest, Kaldalis had no idea what it was. How dangerous it could be.

And the only way he could think of to give himself that information was to kill it.

With glaive in hand, he tried to creep around the outside of the clearing to get a closer look at it. It looked pretty intimidating, and he expected that it would be able to give him a real fight, like what he couldn’t get out of the flytraps and cougadiles the quests had sent him after.

A part of himself noted that it likely did water damage, considering it was dribbling water from its claws, but he couldn’t really do anything with that information. Kaldalis didn’t exactly have a water resistance set of gear to swap to. He also wanted to guess at what element it would be weak to, but even if he had a weapon in the appropriate element, it wouldn’t be a spear type.

He stepped up onto the clearing, and as soon as he left the treeline, the resting beast stirred. Its head raised and it regarded him blankly for a moment before putting its head back down, as though dismissing him like an irritated domestic cat. That meant he was able to walk right up on it without it moving. He wondered if that meant it was much higher level than him, that it didn’t think he was a threat.

Kaldalis considered the possibility that he was about to bite off more than he could chew.

But when was the time for experimentation if not now? He was at a low level, and still figuring things out. Monsoon wouldn’t make a game that would permanently punish someone for the high crime of being new and stupid.

Right?

His mind expressed that uncertainty just as his arms thrust out his glaive full-force into the giant lizard’s flank. Red blood that seemed unnaturally thick squirted from the wound as he withdrew the weapon and jumped back to get some distance.

He did relatively respectable damage, dispelling the notion that the creature was significantly stronger than he was. He did sixteen physical damage and five wind damage, which was better than expected. When fighting the elder nautilobster he’d done less than a third of that.

The creature hissed and whirled on him, moving faster than something that large had any right to, back arched and teeth bared.

Kaldalis didn’t wait for it to attack. He danced in and swung his glaive once more. The creature’s thick scaled hide deflected the blow, however. It hissed and lunged, enormous claws raking the air, first from the left, and then the right. The first attack went wide, but the second one slashed across his side, dealing eleven physical damage, and two water damage. It confirmed his theory that it was higher level than the other monsters he’d fought, but with damage that was more comparable to his own than anything else he faced, it was possible that it wasn’t dramatically higher.

He danced away, focusing on keeping his spacing right - if he could keep it at the reach of his glaive, it wouldn’t be able to reach with its claws. After his second strike glanced off, he set his feet and made a firm thrust instead. He scored the hit on the creature’s broad shoulder, drawing another hissing snarl from it. It staggered back, the wound dribbling more of that glue-thick blood. Just before he could take advantage of the opening it lunged again, this time with its serrated teeth bared to bite.

Kaldalis feared what would happen if it managed to sink its teeth into him. He had a vision of a man being flailed around in a bear attack on TV, only in his mind, the bear was a giant lizard and the man had indigo skin with a tail and horns.

He focused his attention on backing out of the way of the snapping jaws. He felt his tail shifting, catching his balance and saving him from falling on his ass in the process. Jaws clapped closed a full foot short of his thigh, and he raised his glaive up over his head, smashing it down more like a staff than anything else. Despite not using the blade at the end of it, it still dealt his damage to it. He wanted to see if the blade happened to land somewhere and break through the tough hide, but he had to dance back again as the beast let loose a rumbling roar and reared up on its hind legs. Its tail reached the ground, stabilizing it as its claws slashed through the air. Kaldalis ducked under the first sweep, but had to throw himself backwards to avoid the second. He had retreated farther than he’d thought, and accidentally bumped into one of the trees at the edge of the clearing.

Thunk.

That was the sound of his horn striking the tree, saving him an otherwise nasty knock to the head. One of them struck first, and his skull seemed to be better able to handle an impact to them than it would have a blow straight to his dome.

Kaldalis knew he’d have to be more careful. It wouldn’t be good to hurt himself more than the creature was.

He struggled to his feet and darted away from the beast. The giant lizard lumbered forward on its hind legs, its gait stable but slow, giant claws raking the air as it approached. Kaldalis ran back away from it, arcing his path to the right to strafe around it, forcing it to turn.

The turn slowed its advance enough that Kaldalis was able to take a moment to assess the threat it posed to him.

Its claws didn’t move quickly, but its powerful arms meant that it was threatening a huge area in front of it, churning the air and flicking droplets of water as it went. He out-ranged it with his spear, but doing so would put him in harm’s way if instead of staying on its feet, it dropped down to all fours to lunge for a bite again. He didn’t want to be flailed around in its jaws like a dog toy, so he stayed back, trying to look for a proper opening.

It didn’t take long for it to realize that its lumbering gait wasn’t going to catch up to him. The scaled creature elected to stop swinging and stood still, staring at him, its beady eyes measuring him up. Kaldalis felt a tingle of self-consciousness at the sensation of being carefully considered by an intelligent predator. He wasn’t sure what it was thinking, nor what he should make as his next move.

He planted his feet and leveled his spear at the creature from his position six feet away from it, returning its stare.

The lizard blinked first, thumping its front legs back down and lunging. It looked like it was going to try and barrel right into him in a tackle, so he dove to the left, rolling back to his feet as soon as the ground was beneath him. Once he had his footing, he lunged blindly back towards the beast, bringing his glaive around in a wide sweeping attack. He landed the blade against the creature’s rear flank, and he jammed his right arm down on the haft, forcing the blade to saw into the scales there, drawing blood - and another twenty-one damage.

The creature snarled and whirled on him, but this time he saw fear in its beady little eyes. It didn’t charge again, but instead circled to his left, keeping its distance. He desperately wished for a health bar above its head so that he could gauge it properly. He feigned another lunge and the creature broke off and bolted for the nearest edge of the clearing. Kaldalis stared for a moment before breaking into a sprint after the giant lizard.

He managed to intercept it right before it reached the treeline, and jammed his spear into its side, twisting hard to try and catch onto the creature the same way he had the giant tentacles only a few hours ago. The creature let loose an enraged hiss at the damage, and when Kaldalis set his feet, it only dragged him a few feet along before he was able to catch solid footing and bring it to a stop. It bucked, forcing Kaldalis to withdraw the spear or else lose it, and turned to face him again.

It was foaming at the mouth now, with red dripping from its teeth. It couldn’t have much fight left in it. Just the same, Kaldalis didn’t want to get sloppy now. It lurched forward and swiped at him, and while he wanted to stand and trade blows, he forced himself to dart away. It was good that he did, because the movement caused it to lunge, swiping with both claws. He almost fell over trying to get out of the way of those follow-up attacks, but the counterbalance of his tail kept him upright.

As soon as the beast’s attack was done, it huffed for a moment, appearing to catch its breath.

Kaldalis knew this was his shot.

He lunged in return, driving his spear into its shoulder with all his strength. Despite the effort he put behind the strike, he still did the same twenty-one damage. The extra force did shove the creature over, causing it to scramble on its side. He pressed his advantage, driving the head of his glaive into the creature’s gut and ripping it out sideways.

That brought an end to the fight. He only did the same twenty-one damage, even though the blow ripped a gaping wound in the giant lizard, sending a flood of thick red blood to the ground, alongside a nauseating few ropes of shredded intestine. But the damage was enough, and the beast thrashed once and lay still.

He blew out a long breath as he sank to his knees, victorious. He wrinkled his nose at the smell coming off of the rent innards of the beast, and stood up quickly to scoot away. Whatever game senses were feeding him information told him that the beast had been called a Grizzled Dragon, had awarded him 28 exp, and in addition to getting a skin and a bone dropped into the materials part of his inventory, he received an item called “Grizzled Dragon Research” that dropped into his quest items. He elected to check it out before moving on.

Grizzled Dragon Research

This represents the knowledge and observations you’ve gathered about a new monster type. Turn this in to Adventurers League researchers for a reward once their research is done. Additional research from you will speed up their progress.

Kaldalis nodded appreciatively at the item. He wasn’t positive that he had really gathered any knowledge about the creature, but apparently killing it was enough to warrant him something.

He took a glance at his minimap. Following the trail had brought him far outside of the quest areas he had been in earlier.

His first instinct was to go back to work.

But this research item gave him pause.

Perhaps he could hunt a little farther out, and search for more experience waiting to be gathered.

The town would be fine. They had way more helping hands than they needed. It was time for Kaldalis to get a little leg up over his competition.