The ruins of Aqumus were oozing with harvestable mana, the place has been like that for thousands of years now! No one truly understood why the place was so rich in mana, but there were plenty of theories and legends about it. The most believable legend was that these ruins used to house the creator of this micro-universe himself, specifically in the very beginning, when Valporovus was created, which was some millenia ago.
It is also believed that the creator sank his own home, and or kingdom into the sea, because he ascended to a new, celestial home that he made for himself! The rich mana quantities were supposedly fractions of air that the creator had breathed before, and the air was so dense that it refused to dissolve over thousands of years now, regardless of the circumstances. Furthermore, once these ruins sank, it is believed that the sea was given air for the fish to breathe in, before that, the sealife was practically non-existent!
These cumulative legends ended up giving birth to a couple of religions, ever since the creator’s supposed departure that is, which wasn’t so surprising. It would take great power to begin with, in order to create a micro-universe, it wasn’t easy, so if people worshiped the creator, it was by merit!
Factually, no one could confirm those great legends entirely, but most mages chose to believe them anyway. They felt important once they imagined that they were harvesting mana, in the very place where the creator of Valporovus once stood, it was quite a legend for one to follow. Any mage would love to attain a tiny fraction of greatness, and or prestige that the creator bore, they’d dream of it!
Anyway, legend or not, the fact of the matter remained. These ruins were very rich in mana, regardless of where that mana came from, and the team was eager to harvest as much of it as they could, they wanted to progress rapidly! There were other places where mana was also free to harvest, but those places were too far away, practically out of reach to the team, as it would take ages to get to them!
The team would rather head to these ruins, and face the dangers that were stashed in them, however, this didn’t necessarily mean that the ruins were close by. Despite its name, this micro-universe was actually the size of a tiny planet, or half of planet earth, which was pretty sizable once square metrics were put in the equation. Now the universe wasn’t curved like a planet, no, but it was still pretty big, so the important places weren’t so easy to reach, great journeys were mandatory if one was to progress!
To get to the ruins of Aqumus, which was some four-hundred kilometers away, the team had to make three important check-points, the fourth being the final destination. The first check-point was only twenty kilometers away from them. They had to walk to a small city, which was primarily filled with degranus goblins, and this was the same race that Arvena had. It wasn’t a bad idea for their first check-point to be full of friendly faces, so that’s where they were heading.
“Twenty kilometers, huh…” Tim sighed, “You sound pretty sure about that distance, so, how long will it take us to get there? Days? Hours? Hopefully soon because I keep walking like a cricket, it’s killing my knees!”
“Goblins don’t even have inverted knees, so I don’t really understand why you’re struggling. Maybe the knee pad is pinching you or something? It shouldn’t be a big deal, you’ll get the hang of this walking thing eventually.” Arvena first said, as she scratched her head in confusion.
Afterwards, she added, “Also, yes, it will take us a day or so to get there, maybe until tomorrow at late noon? It’ll be dusk soon, and that’s really cutting into our traveling time, because soon, we gotta make camp for the night. It’s annoying to camp, yes, but we can get to Figus even earlier tomorrow, if we wake up and start walking in the morning, I’m sure of that!”
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“No rush, camping sounds good.” Tim seconded, as he didn’t really care about mana for the moment. He just wanted to rest, as that would keep him from walking funny.
The woods were uncomfortably close to the beach, so they had to walk through the woods right away, which was a bit uncomfortable for them. This place was weird, proportion-wise, but they tried to manage as best as they could.
This part of the journey wasn’t entirely bad. There was a dirt path in between the woods, which was far more useful than walking through itchy branches and bushes, so the team made use of it, they followed this path, and tried to find a good, comfortable camping spot along the way.
They walked through the woods for another hour, and before they could decide where to camp, they heard a sudden, loud, and seemingly intimate screech that shook them to the core! They were terrified.
“What the hell was that?” Tim asked, in panic.
“That should be a cockatrice dragon,” Arvena answered.
“A cock-a-what? Dragon!?” He panicked even further, and then he tightened his fists as he scanned the sky.
He then promised, “We’re not playing nice with a fucking dragon, I’m putting a hole through that motherfucker! Thunder can kill it, right?”
Arvena was confused by the other’s raw, and seemingly unreasonable fear, she was stumped. It took her a moment to understand his reaction, but she caught up once she remembered that her guests were foreign to this land, very foreign! They weren’t aware of the creatures here, and if they actually knew better, they wouldn’t be scared of a mere cockatrice dragon, no, that wouldn’t make sense.
To soothe her visitors’ nerves, she added. “Cockatrice dragons are barely dragons, kid, they’re more like a mixture of a chicken and a bat. Ugly creatures for sure, but they’re not nearly actual, huge dragons, hell no! Actually, if we play our cards right, that horny thing can be our dinner for the night. Chicken tastes really good, trust me!”
“My question remains, then, can thunder kill it, lady?” He pressured.
“It could, but that ugly bastard is too fast for you to hit. It’s best if you put your trousers down, and bend over like a heifer in heat in order to attract our dinner ~ you too, Skendus! Our cockatrice dragons are known for being notoriously homosexual, and if you two offer your asses to it, the cockatrice won’t be able to resist them. When it gets close enough, I’ll cut its head off with a single hit, and then, we’ll eat.” She explained.
“What?” Tim asked, helplessly, and then he yelled out. “I’m not getting fucked by a chicken, never!”
“Rooster, technically.” Skendus intervened, “But yes, what he said, I’m not getting rammed by a crazed rooster either, Arvena! That sounds far too bizarre, and painful!”
“Oh, don’t be such babies. I won’t let it get too close, and besides, an opportunity has been presented to us here! This is a really easy way to get dinner for ourselves, quality dinner, otherwise we’ll be holding our bellies tonight. Cockatrice dragons are otherwise really hard to catch, so we’re lucky that you two managed to attract one here already!” She argued.
The debate that followed along was strong, but short. Ultimately, the two good friends ended up pulling their trousers down, and as of now, their assholes met with some much-needed, soft, sunshine.
“I can’t believe that they catch food this way, she better know what she’s fucking doing!” Timothy complained.
Then, he bent his neck forward to get a glimpse of what was behind him. Sure enough, he saw something gray flying around, really close by, and it had to be a cockatrice dragon, it couldn’t be anything else. Tim was terrified overall, especially since he got a brief glimpse of the dragon’s main tool, it was humongous, and it scared him for the worst!
Skendus, however, couldn't help cracking a joke, he said. “Cock-a-trice, hah! Well at least we can say that the species was named appropriately, nice. Let’s hope it doesn’t cripple us with its penis though, it has an absurdly big john!”