Spoiler (click to show/hide):
Right, the thing is that these are not 'locals' so they're not limited by crystal magic in any way, just how much mana they can put out and their personal knowledge, which they tend to share fairly extensively. I'm thinking they'll favor teleporting material between Talren and them to defend themselves once they realize his magic resistance, on top of using their ability with charm and full blown mind control to bring in hostiles. In the coming encounter, the Weaver is going to be the threat toward Talren. The Parasite is mostly going to be elite mooks, and the threats are likely to come from the creature they've infested combined with having a caster direct them and stitch them back together, like say, a mythril ogre but that's for a later fight.
She sniffles slightly before she gets to work, obviously distracting herself with something while she works. She doesn't mind you taking the sub-brain, even slipping it into a small pouch thing that has some kind of time magic rippling through it. At a guess, something to preserve any particularly valuable specimens. You recall seeing something similar when the Oracle received her 'stardust'. It doesn't take her long to completely hollow out the chest cavity, something she's standing knee deep in before she's done. The huge spines sticking out of its back actually extend from the spinal column. One of them anyway, there's another one more central that seems to have the actual nerves in it, the one along its back seems to be purely structural, a good thing you hadn't gone for it.
You manage to resharpen the blade fairly quickly although you look and realize that the damned monster not only bruised your face, it took one of your damn claws. Well, a damaged claw is probably a worthy price for such a good fight. Creatures of this grade are not common given the reaction at the hunters guild, but finding a few more, perhaps as pets or guard dogs might be worth looking into.The meat on the limbs is now being pulled loose, and the way Mary is skinning it, you could rip off chunks to eat, or you could cook some. Judging by the raw metallic scent, it's probably poisonous to humanoids though, like eating metal dust. How well you can handle that... In vengeance for the stolen claw, and while you mull over eating the meat, you take a bite of rib bone, and the densely packed magic explodes in your mouth, washing over you and you can feel the scales you kindly donated earlier tingle as they feed on the magic. It will still take a while for the actual minerals to reach them, but the surge of the right kind of magic has jump started the regrowth process. Your scales might actually come back stronger this time. That said, your sisters will probably never let you live it down if you grow in dull greyish red scales instead of your near black with a reddish tinge. You're the youngest, but going grey...
Something grabs your attention from the meal, a magical tingling. Searching, you see nothing, but there's a good bit of wind magic and... light magic coming from a particular direction back toward the human colonized mountain. It's getting closer alarmingly fast, and you see plants part under wake around whatever it is turns and slows for a few seconds before a massive pulse of wind magic sends the invisible object almost straight up. Trying to see something invisible, you almost didn't catch the silvery grey figure that suddenly appeared from behind it. A strange magical signature goes active, and the figure plows a deep furrow in the ground as it lands, a spell pistol and small shield clutched in its hands. You feel your hackles rise up, a challenger for your prey! As it approaches, you see its feet sink deep into the ground, before it stops a few dozen paces. It's very heavily armored, massive angular plates a departure from the smaller crystalline and ceramic inserts favored by the locals. Chest plate and helmet are uru, limbs have some uru, but mostly mythril. The helmet is almost smooth, a pair of purple eye slits the main defining feature besides a large red gem in the center of the forehead.
Sizing the stranger up with your instincts telling you that the other dragon is a threat... other dragon? The dissonance is enough to break whatever strong instinctive urge was driving you to begin analyzing this newcomer as a threat after your prey, horde, and harem. You recognize the red gem now, it's one of the crystals that Elizabeth made, meaning this is someone with good connections. Combined with the powerful mana flow being drawn through it, it gave off a very strong impression of another dragon. She, and you can now tell she's female from the way the armor fits her, puts two fingers against her throat guard and does...something that hisses in the magical energy around you. Repositioning her fingers, her voice booms out and you realize who it is. "You know, I had to cancel several very important meetings to come kill this thing because of the threat it posed. And I show up and you've already killed and partially eaten the damned thing." Theresa complains to you.
