Georgie the dragon, and the group of goblins came to an agreement. Since they helped him survive that icy death trap, Georgie was to fly them to the ruins of Aqumus!
Now this was a great deal, because Georgie didn't have to exert too much energy to fulfill his end of the bargain, and the goblins could reach their destination without risking their necks every step of the way. A distance of four hundred kilometers was a lot for them, but not if they were on the dragon throughout most of the way, which was a blessing above anything else! They could get there in a couple of days, so they felt glad that they helped a trapped dragon today, it paid off.
“He is absolutely beautiful,” Tim complimented, as he saw the dragon’s majestic wings flutter across the sky. “A beautiful beast, and I can’t imagine how breathtaking he'll be when he's all grown up!”
“Dragons are known for their beauty, regardless of how they're lizards by ancestry. Small lizards are absolutely gross, and often taste awful too, so it's difficult to pinpoint where the dragons get their beauty from.” Arvena added a fun fact.
Before they could continue that conversation, however, Tim felt something strange. His chest tightened, and before he knew it, he couldn’t hold on to the dragon’s antlers any longer, because he fainted only seconds later!
No one knew what was going on, but after they saw him suddenly fall off the dragon, their hearts sunk to their boots! This was sudden, unpredictable, and certainly terrifying for everyone involved.
Tim fell from the sky at dusk time, so as the sun laid a beautiful red-and-yellow coating across the sky, he plummeted towards his doom! From a certain perspective, he even looked like he was rolling down across the sun, which was beautiful, in a sense, but deadly nonetheless, as the hard ground did not care for beauty!
Georgie was too large to dive down and catch up to Timothy on time, he couldn’t do anything to help. Although they were a kilometer above the ground, which was quite high, it would still take Timothy less than half a minute to hit the ground, so Georgie wouldn't be able to catch up, it was a concerning situation!
Although he could not help, Georgie didn't just watch helplessly. He grunted a couple of times, and roared with that puny voice he had, until the smaller dragons heeded his command, and quickly dove down. All seven of them went after Timothy, and if they were fast enough, they might catch up to him!
It would be best if they did, because he was in no condition to help himself, because he showed telltale signs of suffering a heart attack just there, and this wasn't a light issue. He was unconscious, and he was also having this weird dream that he couldn't make sense of. In other words, it was unlikely that he would wake up anytime soon!
In this dream, he was in a pit of utter darkness, and this man with a thick timber on his voice, was yelling at him. It felt like this man was two feet above his head, but no matter how much Tim tried to reach out, he couldn’t grab a hold of him!
At first, this man’s words were incoherent, but eventually, since they were being yelled out in repeat, his words were a bit more understandable. Though still, everything about this experience was terrifying!
“The defiant shall not escape!” It repeated, “Punishment is nigh, as The Punished are marked by Falakame!”
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Tim was in no condition to have coherent thoughts right now, especially since he was dreaming, but those couple of facts did not prevent him from doing something stupid. He didn’t like getting yelled at, especially about something like punishment, something he openly defied, so not only did he realize what was going on now, but he also had a bit of a reply to give out.
“Grab your punishment and shove it up your arse!” He yelled, in his dream, and then he simply woke up.
After he woke up, he noticed a couple of dragons holding on to him. They were those tiny dragons, who's species name was called the Craftsmen Dragonflies, and they were very useful creatures from the clear looks of it!
The dragonflies managed to get a hold of him, and then they carefully set him on the ground until further help arrived. They were helpers, after all, not doctors.
Georgie landed with everyone else about two minutes later, and then Tim's friends rushed towards him to make sure that he was okay. It was quite a fright he gave them, and no one really realized how much they cared about him, until he took a dive just moments ago - Their sheer worry crossed all bounds!
“Are you okay?” Skendus asked, as he rushed over.
“Uhh… I'm pretty sure I just had a heart attack.” He admitted, “And I figured out who's been messing with us, it's…”
“Don't speak,” Arvena intervened, “Heart attacks are absolutely treatable, we just need to feed you mana that's purer than your own. Lucky for you, mine is pretty pure.”
“You’re a sweetheart,” Tim said, and then he fainted again.
Once he fainted, everyone panicked even more, so Arvena got right into work. She placed her hand on Tim's chest, and started pouring these micro amounts of mana into his chest, with the hopes of not killing him in the process. Arvena was at least a realm ahead of him in terms of mana quality, so she didn't want to kill the little guy by accident!
“It's gonna take a while to make him normal again,” She said, “How about you guys set up camp here? Let's try to keep him warm tonight, it's the least we can do.”
This was not the best place to set camp, as they were in a field where there was a severe lack of trees, but they tried nonetheless, because at least they weren't in that dreaded forest anymore. They had to keep a campfire going, potentially for hours, so they tried to do exactly that, and so even the dragonflies went out looking for branches! Those little guys were truly helpful.
Anyway, while everyone was deeply panicking about their friend, Tim was having yet another weird dream. This time, he felt more powerful, likely thanks to Arvena's help, and this affected his dream in the way where he wasn't in utter darkness in his dream anymore, not this time around.
The dream he had was full of color, and here, he was back in the Frozen Red-leaf Forest. Although this terrified him for a moment, he was then smart enough to realize that this was just a dream, it couldn't be real.
Moments later, that yeti appeared. He didn't rush towards Timothy this time around, though, and just approached slowly instead, with a stick on his hands.
It pointed the stick towards Timothy, and from afar, it mumbled something incoherent. It was difficult to grasp what the ape was saying, but it was apparent that it tried to speak the goblin tongue once more!
The ape approached, struck the stick on the ground so hard that a bunch of dirt shot upwards because of it, and then it spoke again. This time however, he was more coherent.
“You cannot kill a god,” It said, and then just disappeared.
Tim was baffled, but as confused as he was, he was not scared. If he survived a heart attack just moments ago, then he could also survive a stupid dream, so he remained calm.
Anyway, afterwards he looked down at where the yeti's stick had struck, and noticed a bunch of symbols carved on the ground. There was a triangle, the letter H, and a cross with slightly curled arms!
Tim couldn't nearly fathom what any of these meant, all he wanted to do was chase that ape and give him a spanking. However, that was not possible right now!