The trapped dragon was now more excited, because the dripping water gave him a couple of advantages. For a start, it gave him just a bit more air to breathe in, and this itself was a great thing to be excited about, so it wasn’t a surprise that his brain activity was going up now, he just avoided death by a ball-hair here.
The second advantage was far greater in comparison! Since the water had an exit point, he could melt more of the ice around him now, and not drown himself in the process either. This way, he would be free a lot quicker!
The dragon started blowing tiny amounts of fire against the ice that had entrapped it, he got into work right away. This tiny amount of fire may not free him immediately, but he did not want to scare the goblins that were helping him, as that would be a really stupid thing to do.
“He’s pretty smart, Skendus, smarter than you said he is.” Tim pointed out.
“Maybe I misread his brain? Sometimes, a dying brain is difficult to tell apart from a dumb brain. My mistake.” He admitted, “But at least he's smart enough to not attack us as soon as we break him free. I bet that he can understand that the ice walls can knock him down as well, he'll behave.”
Skendus had a point, so no one argued with him. They didn't want to distract Arvena anyway, so everyone kept quiet.
Arvena eventually cut a whole doorway through the ice, and she was able to do so without much worry, because the ice walls were tough enough to not shatter around her. Well they would've broken apart if she was within the God's Punishment Realm of mana, but she wasn't in that realm for a long time now, she was beyond that curse of a realm. Her fiery daggers were sharp, precise, and hot enough to cut steel, so she did not worry about the ice right now.
In other words, she knew what she was doing. They didn't trust Timothy as much, however, so they kept him as far away from the work-site as possible.
Arvena extended the doorway into a tunnel, and kept going for about three meters, until she met the dragon halfway. Once she broke into the area that the dragon had been trapped in, she then kept her guard up, because she fully expected to be attacked despite what everyone in the group had said.
The dragon did not attack, however, it just took a few more deep breaths, and heaved out a big sigh afterwards. Every living thing needed to breathe, and Arvena got less scared of it as she saw it breathe heavily, because the dragon seemed more and more vulnerable this way. It was mortal, and had its vulnerabilities like most living things!
“Do you think you can squeeze through there, boy?” She asked, and pointed at the tunnel that she had melted through.
The walls of the tunnel were pretty stable, because the surrounding cold temperatures had frozen the weak parts of the tunnel back into place. It was safe to cross it.
The dragon laid down on its stomach afterwards, and sniffed the tunnel out. The tunnel was only three feet tall, and two feet wide, so he simply could not squeeze through it. Its antler-like horns would get stuck before he even entered the ice tunnel, it wouldn't work.
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“Too small, eh? You’re right, I did make it just wide enough for me to come through… let's see if we can double it up.” She said.
Considering that the dragon wasn't immediately hostile, she was feeling especially helpful now, so she started carving out the tunnel to the best of her abilities. She figured that the tunnel had to be at least six feet wide for the dragon to crawl through.
The dragon just relaxed, and breathed in lumps of fresh air in the meantime. He was just trying to regulate his body as best as he could, because being trapped in ice had its certain tolls, he had to heat up as quickly as possible as well. Plenty of dragons were prone to hypothermia, it was how the rest of these dragons had died out in the first place, some sort of blizzard may have gotten to them as well at some point.
Anyway, while they waited outside, Tim couldn't help asking a couple of questions. He didn't want to bother Arvena, however, so he bothered his friends instead.
“Do dragons have mana pools? This big bastard doesn't look like he's gonna run out of fire anytime soon.” He asked.
“About everything that lives or doesn't live, has a mana pool. I used to be a plant, for goodness sake, so that should tell you everything you need to know about mana.” Ortana pointed out.
“That doesn't really tell me much,” He said, “I just want to know what realm he is in.”
That was where Skendus chimed in, he theorized. “He has to be in the same realm as us, considering that I can see through his brain really vividly. Perhaps dragons don't use their mana all that much, I mean, if I was a dragon I'd just eat everyone that opposed me. It's simple for them.”
Either perspective here was understandable, but either one did not matter right now. They were all happy, because in a way, they expected this huge, dark-red scaled dragon to get them out of here today, they hoped so. They were very enthusiastic about escaping this ongoing, terrible situation that they were in.
Anyway, Arvena eventually made a tunnel wide enough for the dragon to crawl through, and that was where everyone understood that the dragon would have it very difficult to move within the labyrinthic walls of ice that surrounded them!
The common pathway was five feet wide, but this dragon was a staggering six feet wide, even when he tucked his belly in! He will not have it easy whatsoever, though he seemed happy nonetheless, because in a sense, he enjoyed a lot more freedom now in comparison to a couple of minutes ago!
“Okay… so how will he help us get out of here?” Arvena asked, after he followed the dragon outside the ice trap that he had been in. “Can you talk, dragon?”
The dragon just looked back at her afterwards, and shook its head in disagreement. It could not speak the goblin tongue, it only grunted, and had about the same vocal range as a lizard did.
“It can't talk like us goblins, but it understands us pretty well.” Skendus confirmed, “It also has some very vivid thoughts, they're visuals in decent detail, so I think I can figure out what it's trying to do.”
After he said that, everyone looked at Skendus anxiously. They were hoping to hear some good news, but they still had this inner fear that the dragon would turn hostile whenever it got the chance! It was reasonable to expect that, regardless of how cooperative the dragon was now.
“It wants to signal other dragons, to help it break out. We can't break the ceiling on top of us without killing ourselves, but he can call for some smaller dragons who should be able to do the job.” He explained.
“It should signal them, then.” Tim added.
“It can't signal them here.” He refused, “The dead dragons are making him really nervous for some reason, wait, not nervous, but weak. He’s feeling really weak…”