Dododex

ARK: Survival Evolved & Ascended Companion

The Isle Of The Griffins Chapter 22

Lolite looked at the now neatly dissected remains of the snake. Other than a pair of strange hard plates behind the snakes brain, which appeared to connect by a fleshy, branching string to the tendrils around the snake's mouth, nothing seemed to be odd about it inside.

He examined the plates, they weren't exactly made of bone, they were almost orange in colour and the inner face of each one was covered in small scratch marks, their structure reminded Lolite of the iron-enhanced teeth of a castoroides.

Also of note were the pairs of muscles connected to the plates, judging by their position, Lolite suspected that they would cause the plates to move and so rub against eachother, this observation, however, was useless as long as Lolite didn't know what they and the tendrils were actually for.

"Is there any more you know about the snakes and missing Griffins?" Lolite asked Blink, who was sitting nearby on the mammoth hide rug.

"Well, one odd thing we noticed in the beginning was that there was never any sign that the Griffins had fought back, there was just a small amount of blood on the ground and sometimes a feather or two, no damage to the surroundings. There were also almost always drawings of a snake, a big one that looked more like a dragon with no legs than a real snake, they ranged from quick scribblings to much more detailed sketches of it, but they seemed. . . Worshipful, and judging by the size of some, they weren't drawn in any hurry"

Lolite thought, he now knew that these snakes had, indeed, almost certainly caused the strange deaths, but not why or indeed how.

'well, the Griffins didn't fight back. . . That could be caused by a paralytic venom, but snakes can't draw, they've no hands, and the tentacles look much too short.'

Then, he realized something. Taking the two plates within the beast's head in his paws, Lolite rubbed them together quickly, and soon enough, the tentacles twitched about at their tips, he touched one and felt a shock of electricity.

He now had something of a theory, just a seed, but it was growing quickly.

"I think I know someth-"

Lolite was, however, cut off when a snake leapt from the ceiling and bit him hard.