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LADI PLACED HER pack on the ground and pulled out her tools. She’d need to get close enough to one of them to remove it. She communicated easily with the creatures of the wood near her home. But these beasts were different. She hoped they understood her benign intentions.
Her superior eyes and ears picked up most of what she needed to learn about the collars and how they worked. She watched as a dragon stomped and growled at a bull-man who was trying to lead him in the opposite direction. The dragon refused, and his collar lit up when the bull-man remotely electrified it. The beast resisted, and the bull-man turned the shock level up. Then again until the animal lowered his head in submission and obeyed. Ladi had already seen what the highest voltage could do on the battlefield. A pai
