He was about to dump all the tainted meat from his ring when he reconsidered.  The meat could be used as bait to kill off canids or other monsters around the two strongholds.  When he called Helen over to mention the idea, she frowned.  “I don’t like it.  Too many other critters might decide to take some free meat.  Local wolves, cats, foxes, even rabbits.  Don’t want to kill off everything around here.”

“Rabbits?  Since when do rabbits eat meat?” Allistor was pretty sure she was screwing with him.

“Since always?  They mostly eat plants, but I’ve seen them go cannibal and eat their own young.  It’s… not something I like to remember.” She made a disgusted face.

“I would think not!” He chuckled, noticing the pain in his head seemed a bit less. “Friggin’ carnivore bunnies? That’s nightmare fuel.”

He dumped the meat tainted by the ophidian poison, assuming that it would fade away.  The others all did the same after Helen made a brief announcement.  A few of the airmen started sorting through the mostly broken and burnt storage crates in the cavern, emptying a few of the intact ones to fill with the harvested drake hide.   Allistor pulled several stacks of it into his ring to lighten the load they’d be carrying upstairs.   He also collected several dozen teeth that Helen had them break free from the thing’s jaws, and six of its claws.  None of the others had rings yet, and the packs they carried on their backs would only hold so much.

As they were finishing up, Allistor noticed that Fuzzy wasn’t in sight.   “Hey, Fuzzy? Time to go bud, where are you?”

A high-pitched growl answered from somewhere toward the back of the cavern, around the edge of the pool.  He called again. “C’mon, Fuzzy!  Time to go!”  This time there was no answer.

Seeing that he was still unsteady on his feet, Helen offered, “I’ll go get him.  Wait here.”  She jogged off in the direction of the growl, Campbell falling in behind her, just in case.  A few seconds after they faded into a dark corner, she called out.  “Uhhh, I think you are gonna wanna see this!”

Andrea helped Allistor walk the distance to where Helen and Campbell stood looking down at the floor.  Following their gaze, he found Fuzzy licking at what he initially thought was a stone.  But even with his addled brain, the oblong shape and the fact that it was clustered with several nearly identical twins quickly registered in his mind.

“It’s a nest.  Eggs.  It’s a friggin dragon nest full of eggs.”

“Thank you, captain obvious.” Helen smirked at him as Fuzzy continued to lick one of the eggs like it was made by Cadbury.

Goodrich raised his shotgun.  “I got this.”