The three foxen checked each others supplies and made sure their leather armors were secured and set off to the gate that would lead them out of the underground city and to the actual country side.
"This is gonna be a good trip I feel it! If we are having a strong hunt we mat stay longer than a month!" They laughed and talked about where they would go, Damon thought the forest to the south would be a good place, there were quite a few basic dragons and a few sentients, there may be a great dragon somewhere deep in the forest but they would steer clear of the darkest parts of the forest, Jeffery thought the volcanic mountains would be be good,there were less pack style basic dragons and more solo ones. There may be more sentient dragons and great dragons but only as you climbed the mountain. The terrain was less treacherous in the forest and in the end Zekes fitness level probably would be better suited for the forest.
They reached the gate and showed their hunters licenses to the gate guards and were granted leave through the gate. The sun was much brighter on the surface than through the skylights of the cities, the lights used to light the cities were powered by solar technologies. Since the Foxxen learned they could evolve their bodies by eating the soul gems of the dragons they also learned that the higher the dragons class rating the more intelligence the Foxxen would gain from the gem and with that greater strides in technologies as the smartest Foxxen became smarter, they're children would inherit these evolutions in their parents dna.
This led to smarter more powerful generations of Foxxen but also led to a class structured on the genetics you could pass to your children.
Finding a mate from a good family was almost garuanteed if you could gain a couple great dragon soul modifications, Zekes cousins both had stacks of proposals from Foxxen elite fathers hoping their daughter would become the mate to one of the boys. He himself wasn't even on the minds of low born Foxxen, His family had a small amount of prestige thanks to his mothers affiliation to the Redpaws, and his father was a military man and had gained some acclaim for his help in the defeat of a grand dragon and its army that had descended on the city. His father had one one skill he had gained from his time hunting dragons ,one he called steel hide, it made his fur stronger than the steel used to forge heavy shields. He once used it to save the life of highborn elite, which is how he was able to marry his mother.
The twins became quiet, the laughter and jokes became eerie silence. " what's wrong cousin?" Zeke was nervous, he perked his large ears up and listened deeply for anything, then he smelled it. Dragons tend to have a distinctive smell, like sulfur and death, the more dragons the more powerful the smell was, but Zeke smelled something scarier. Higher ranking dragons such as great and grand dragons smelled different, like cinnamon and lotus flowers, and that smell was strong and close.
"What do we do?" Zeke was obviously panic stricken, his voice shaked, his hands trembled, if he had any liquids in his blatter he would have expelled them immediately.
"We hide" the twins responded in unison, and took off the way they came. Zeke followed, the were moving at top speeds, which was much faster than him with his current physical limits. Then the boys stopped cold, a loud roar rumbled in the trees then a large swath of trees in front of the boys exploded to splinters. Three heads belonging to that of a great purple tri dragon entered the area it had just cleared, it raised its heads and glared down at the twins just a few meters in front of them. Then Zeke's worst nightmare came true, a scream from behind him bellowed, then a large shadow moved above him. He had to roll off to the side as a large green great dragon dropped to the forest floor. I blew fire above its head leaving the canopy above in flames. They roared at each other again then their eyes began to glow.
"Run!" The twins headed in Zekes direction before more lower dragons began to enter the area. Each great dragon had a small army of basic and sentient dragons, "jeffery you were right, the volcano mountains would have been better!" Damon teased as he ran for his life " we havnt even made it to the damn forest!" Jeffery yelled back "I bet our wretched cousin gave us some of his bad luck!" Zeke couldn't help but laugh and feel kinda guilty, he was incredibly bad luck to have on hunts.
Some of the basic dragons finally saw the Foxxen and a couple decided to break away and go after them. The twins managed to kill one almost immediately when it came into range, it was a small squat dragon resembling a pig but with much large tusks and a fire main, it was covered in pink scales. The great dragon turned away from his foe in front of him and immediately set his glowing eyes on all three of the boys.
"Shit! I don't think we are going to be able to run." Jefferey yelled to Zeke, " Arm your bow! Maybe we can get away if we hand some of the smaller scouts and put some distance between us and the great dragons. They seem to be in some sort of battle themselves!"
All poor zeke could do was try to dodge the claws and flames being aimed in his direction, a powerful green scaled claw came down on him, Zeke dropped his bow and rolled the right, narrowly missing the blow. The tree behind where he was standing exploded into splinters. Zeke crawled his way into the brush, the dragon didnt follow him, rather he focused on the twins, they were moving masterfully underneath the claws and flames and spiked tails, the attacks seemed to be moving in slow motion to the pair.
They didn't attack back as much as they would deflect or dodge one attack and have it collide with another, making the dragons essentially fight each other.
Zeke scanned the ground and saw his bow was still fine but several meters away. He slinked into the shadows and crept to his bow, he was no fighter like the twins, his best bet to help was to stay at a distance and pick off the weak.
Zeke had forgotten about the two grand dragons, the small onslaught of lower dragons had occupied his attention, but not the twins, they danced around them narrowly escaping the jaws if the tri-headed dragon or ducking beneath the swipe of the great green dragon. As the two dodged one would manage to deal a lethal strike to one of the subordinate smaller dragons. Slowly but surely the crowd of dragons shrunk. Zeke took aim and landed an arrow in the eye socket of a sentient dragon, it was the color of turquoise, slender, almost snake-like, it let out a shriek before Zeke managed to secure a bolt into its forehead and stuck it to a nearby tree. "Yes!" Zeke thought, that was until two more sentient dragons similar to the first noticed him perched outside the fight. The made a b-line straight for Zeke, Jeffery slung a blade over his shoulder and hit one of them behind its ear piercing its brain, it fell to the ground dead. The second still headed to Zeke with fire in its eyes and static on its breath. It opened its mouth to send lightning bolts at Zeke, he rolled to the left as they landed on a tree instead causing it to explode leaving a splintered stump and ash. Zeke's bow had once again left his hand and ended up on the floor of the forest, the dragon was almost right on top of Zeke, this was it, he was gonna die. The dragon opened its mouth once more to charge its attack. He closed his eyes preparing to feel the electricity remove his soul from its chambers. A few second passed by and nothing, he opened his eyes to see damon with a spear through the back of its head with the spear tip exiting its mouth. He slung the body to the side and helped Zeke up, " why hasn't the two grand dragons joined in?" Damon shrugged, his brother was trying to hold off two high dragons, each were 2 meter tall and easily weight a ton a piece. They resembled rhino's but were blood red and the had 4 long sharp horns down their forehead. They had wings that moved like humming birds wings, allowing them to move with precision and speed. Zeke could barely keep up with their movements, he grabbed his bow off the ground and grabbed another arrow and took aim at one of the high dragons. He let loose the arrow and watched it ricochet off the rhino-dragons hide, the collision sounded like pebbles on a tin roof, it DID however bring its attention to him. The two great dragons had refrained from joining in the chaos, the boys hadn't even noticed that the low born dragons werent all focused on the cousins, they were in fact fighting each other. The two great dragons roars at each other, the green dragon blew large plumes of fire into the air while the three headed dragon launched lightning bolts into the air. The lower dragons froze, the twins remove the head off one of the high dragons as the other floated in front of Zeke like he wasn't even there just looking at the two great dragons posturing aggressively at each other.
That was all the opening Zeke needed, he turned and ran into the forest leaving the scene behind.