He listened, intently, to the descriptions. One he recognized as Orthoclase-Alpha, and prompted this memory from Hera. "Think back--was the one with quills the same as the one that helped us against Mother?" It would be interesting, if so: Dragon knew that this one had been sent to aid them in Cetus, but he could not for the life of him remember by whom.
It was the mention of the Masked Merchant, however, that jolted him into interest. "That's him!" Dragon cried, with a fair bit more fire to him than his usual half-hibernating, primeval patience. "That is him. The antlered one."
Dragon gave a low rumble of thought before continuing, before explaining. "There was a time when darkness came to the caves. It has done that before--many times!--but this time was different. You were alive for it, I think, though I cannot remember if you fought, or if you were in your stone. But this darkness was different in that it was not only shadow! It was not just..." and here Dragon paused, a stretching, churning bit of silence that was not true silence, but the urgent search for a description, "...the absence of light. Do you understand-? No: this darkness was aware. There were things in it, things formed of the dark. Things that hunted, fought. We fought them, killed them, but many were badly wounded, nearly killed." He paused, remembering, thrusting his mind back to that time--years ago, now. One year, two? -He could not remember. "There were monsters throughout the caves--but here in Cetus it was a dog. A dog that was black, and far too large. It had a glowing red gem at its chest. Glowing red eyes. But it controlled the shadows, you see. It came with them," and he paused, recalling the roiling darkness that stretched like rapid, savage claws to engulf them, remembering the thin dog's eight-foot height, "and these shadows whispered, confusing. We heard threats, and cruel promises. But we defeated it, in the end. With that, though..." And here, Dragon paused, eyeing Hera with that same intent gaze--he was, it seemed, getting to a point and not simply providing comparisons--"came a magic, as it died. We learned to make lights."
Dragon turned, nodding to the air, his permanent alligator grin somehow out of place with the cold solemnity of the conversation. And yet there was an almost eagerness in his tone that matched it: the detective unfurling a mystery, though in truth he had yet to more than tug at its fraying edges. A wisp--phosphorescent, somehow eerie in its pale light and slowly bobbing motions--flickered into being beside and somewhat above him. It was nowhere near as bright as Hera's orb, but it was there, a fool's guide into the marsh, into death. "These. They came to us; we learned to make them. But it didn't end there."
"Some time later all of us found that our wisps began forming of their own accord! Leading us, or trying to, in bobbing and confusing paths. Those of us who followed found ourselves in the cave of winds--Monoceros, they call it--deep in the Gorge, at a hole into the ground. And that creature you describe! -With the antlers, the mask. The Masked Merchant, it calls itself. It was there, and it said that it had sent for us." Dragon grunted, then. "I know that it offered rewards for going into--and surviving!--that deep hole. Some went. I did not; I thought it foolish! But others did. I do not know who came out, and who did not. But my point is, that if this creature was using the wisps to beckon, and I think it did create the beasts in the darkness that we encountered here, before; if it created this black trial in Monoceros itself, well..." Dragon snapped his jaw at the wisp: a cracking, heavy sound, like a boulder falling, a sound that echoed before being lost to the mist of the swamp. The magic vanished, the wisp dissipating. "Then we know much more about him. If he creates trials with dark shadows and monsters, and controls this magic, then he must have done so again. And he may plan to do so in the future." Dragon paused, thinking. It added up, to him: antlered creature creates dark trial, shadow monsters; he's present at the same happening just a cycle or two ago? Then he must be behind it all.
"We will need to think of how to address this. It is good information, Hera," he praised; "but perhaps you can find this information second-hand, instead of risking yourself!" As for her looks, well, she'd given an honest answer--but Dragon had never thought the bird pretty. He wasn't sure what he found 'pretty,' in truth; he had little reason to see things in such light. Hera had been... brown? Large; her claws were perhaps her finest feature, and her wings, and she still had those. But he knew, too, that to say as much would be insulting, and so he addressed it on a more practical level--and a slightly more tactful one. "I am sorry that you feel that way about your appearance! But you still have your wings, and your talons. That is good," and he wasn't sure what else to say about that. A pause, then, and admission of his ignorance: "You have problems wqith your vision?" he asked, quizzically; he hadn't been aware.