Since they both discovered where those frozen human remains were, it would make sense if only one of them led them to the spot. Skendus led the way, because this arrangement would be more efficient if he led, and Ortana joined him to keep him company.
Tim was to stay last in line, just to keep the dragon warm, since he too could summon fire of many volumes. He knew enough not to burn the dragon by accident, and he was happy with this arrangement, because he was light enough to ride on the dragon's back as well! A bunch of his childhood fantasies were fulfilled just like that, he was really happy.
Arvena cleared a path for Georgie the dragon to walk on, that was her main job. If they were to make it to their destination, they needed a six foot wide path in front of them, and neither the dragon or Timothy were in a good enough state to carve a path, they couldn't. Arvena was their best hope in this matter, they had to follow her lead.
This procedure may take a while, because it takes a lot of effort to carve a path without having the ice collapse over their heads, but they were forced to be patient. Every extra crack that they heard, gnawed on everyone's souls deeply, because they couldn't shake away the terrifying notion that they could die at any time! Mages weren't immune to heavy objects, after all.
It took her a full thirty minutes to carve a twenty-meter long path. At some point the dragon simply went to sleep, because even though he understood the plan, he realized that it would take a while to get away from this dragon-filled graveyard. He was efficient, and Tim kept warming his scaly spine too, so this was perhaps one of the greatest naps that Georgie took! He was far more comfortable than he was half an hour ago.
Anyway, considering how slow their progress was, they may have to work for another three hours. The labyrinth did not promise a straight path, after all, there were various sharp turns and drops of elevation, so it wasn’t easy to carve through all of those obstacles! Arvena even complained that she was spending a lot of her mana, and even though her mana pool was quite deep, her utter depletion of mana may be a problem soon!
“Let’s just keep pushing,” Tim encouraged her, “I feel this big guy heating up already, and I think he's gonna get warmer the more we move, so we can all rest on his back after a while. Let's just hope we don't go through another blizzard, because then we'll be really fucked, thoroughly humped.”
“I can't prevent blizzards, so let's hope we're not that unlucky.” She said.
The following couple of hours were brutal, mostly for Arvena, because she had to move her arms around all the time, in order to implement the utmost precision on the path that she was carving. It wasn't easy, it was mentally draining too, but to be fair, everyone else in the group wasn't having a good time either.
Ortana and Skendus were the closest to hypothermia, because they had to stand around in the cold all the time. They were at the front of the line, so they were exempt of any warmth whatsoever, apart from their clothes and armor which kept them a bit warm. They suffered -15°C temperatures all this time, they were the most harmed.
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At that point everyone had to stop moving, for multiple reasons, even though their destination was just ten more meters away. Everyone had to warm up a little bit, apart from Arvena who has had her own fiery daggers to keep her warm so far, she wasn’t as desperate for warmth, but she stayed near Georgie nonetheless. She couldn't spend any more mana, so everyone had to depend on the dragon's hot scales to stay warm.
Half an hour later, everyone was in top condition again, because the scales managed to warm them up quite quickly, they were fine. Georgie looked a lot healthier now too, so he was awake, but he had tried not to move that much these past few minutes, in order to let his friendly goblins relax, and recover - He wanted to return the favor.
Skendus hopped off of Georgie’s back a moment later, and asked. “Are you feeling better, dragon? Can you signal your friends from here? You should be able to.”
Georgie shook his head in disagreement, he did not feel ready, regardless of how healthy he looked. This was not the answer they were looking for, but at least they could communicate well.
Skendus looked through the other's brain, and saw that he was still picturing that icy graveyard behind them, the one that was full of dragons. That was enough to realize that the dragon was still uncomfortable.
“We have to move,” Skendus added, “I'm fairly certain that the dead dragons could block off any signal that he could send out, maybe dragons can do that to each other? If yes, then I assume this ice is an even bigger enemy to us than we thought, because it kept those dead dragon’s carcasses very well preserved, enough for them to bother the living. This is terribly bad luck.”
The dragon just nodded along the more the other spoke, so their issue was confirmed there. In order to progress and get out of here, the dragon had to make it to those frozen humans, as it appeared to be the only way to get things done.
They made it there after another half an hour, thankfully. Since they hadn't been killed by a random blizzard so far, this was simply the best time to signal for help.
Georgie the dragon appeared to be happy now, he was as cooperative as ever. He was a warm, snug little boy, and he wanted to get his new friends out of here as soon as possible. In order to fulfill that goal, he suddenly lifted his tail up, rounded his spine just like an angry cat would, and then he screeched at a frequency that his goblin friends could not pick up on!
This looked weird, but when everyone became more acknowledging of this guy’s sheer size and overall weirdness, they believed that he knew what he was doing. The screech didn't bring the ice walls down on their heads either, and that was something to be quite happy about.
Anyway, after Tim saw how big this guy truly was when standing up on his four’s, the questions that popped up in his head afterwards, were exclusively oriented towards size. He could not comprehend how big dragons actually were!
“You called him a little guy, Arvena. Do you mean to say that Georgie will grow even bigger than he already is?” He asked.
“Yes, he's barely a teenager.” She answered, and left everyone baffled.
Facts aside, be it a baby or a teenager, Georgie still managed to get the job done! He seemed to have successfully summoned some of his pals, they were floating all the way up there, above the top of the icy walls!
“Haha! He did it!” Tim celebrated, he was the loudest of the bunch. “Let’s get out of this god forsaken forest as fast as we fucking can!”