Taking a precaution is not an effect. Sano was completely unharmed. The armor was more a statement of no-selling the birdman's efforts. But hey, we've got incoming now. Dragons suddenly came into Sano's field of vision, a fact which surprised him enough to head straight up in order to shed velocity and dissuade them from thinking he was on the attack. He stopped up there in mid-air. The group leader signaled the other three go ahead as he flew up. They were going to deal with the other thing while he confronted the stranger. The first thing that Sano noticed, apart from the fact that there was a dragon hovering before him now, was that the soldier before him had dark skin, which he'd never seen in his entire life.
"Who are you? State your purpose."
"I'm a traveler from the west, on my way to Ketra. This pest of a birdman decided to give me trouble, so I flew."
"Yes, I'd heard reports of such a beast in this area. How're you even doing that?"
Sano looked himself over and just shrugged.
"Magic?"
Rengal laughed.
"Get going, then. But do not do anything to upset the dragons, or your armor will become a molten tomb."
"I believe you."
That would be the end of Sano's part in this area, but what about Zero?
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Well, the thing is...they really had heard about him. Being so adamant about 'intruders', there'd be plenty of whom he'd probably killed, others that he'd chased off in one direction or another. Eventually, complaints of such would make it to Adela, who would filter down reports of such a beast to its soldiers. Ironically, if a patrol had caught him before, he could've even been killed by them and then subsequently resurrected himself later. Whether such had happened before or not, they had ways of dealing with a creature like this.
The other three dragonriders had pursued him to the area in which Zero dove below the treeline, but they did not go down in there. There were better ways. I mean, even though it would be hard to pinpoint him in all that, they had frigging dragons and magic. The mage raised his hands and three circular symbols made of white light appeared before the mouths of their dragons. They were filters, changing one element into another. Right after the spell was cast, all three dragons spewed fire directly into the trees and the surrounding area, creating a purifyiing white flame that spread throughout the area, lighting up the area. It's effect upon the trees? Maybe no more than photosynthesis. It's effect on the local fauna? Temporary blindness. What about creatures demonstratably seen to be consorting with darkness? Uhhh...that's bad. The only silver lining, really, is that if they got 'im, he'll be back.