The cockatrice dragon fell for the trap, and got killed. Its existence was disturbing to begin with, it was a weird creature, but one shouldn’t reject a perfectly good meal, regardless of what it would take to get that meal. Tim and Skendus risked their anuses, yes, literally even, but their risks were worthwhile.
They killed the dragon, and later on they cooked it, once they found a good camping spot to settle in. The cockatrice dragon tasted a lot like chicken (or a rooster), as the name would encourage, and it tasted like quality meat too, the good stuff. The latter part was surprising because this silvery thing looked like the stuff of nightmares up close, it seemed evil, and awfully clawy too! No foreigner would guess that this lizard/bat/rooster would be edible, nonetheless taste good!
“Who would’ve guessed that a chicken tail would taste so good? I feel stuffed!” Tim sighed, he was happy.
“I’m glad you think it’s good, because it was your ass who we put at risk there.” Arvena followed along, “Also, that thing you’re nibbling on, it’s more of a lizard tail. You’re eating the reptilian part of the cockatrice.”
“Oh? I have a taste for lizard meat, then.” He said, but some of his words were muffled by the burning campfire. “Are we just gonna dump what’s left of this bastard, though? He isn’t as big as you expect a dragon to be, but he’s still pretty big, as tall as me too, we can’t carry it around.”
“We’re gonna take its good, fatty parts tomorrow morning, and we’ll leave the rest for other critters to feed on, scavengers and such. We must respect mother nature, after all, and give out our crumbs to it; Mother nature has her tax too, it’s a fair, liveable tax.” She cited.
“You’re very… philosophical.” Skendus then complimented.
Anyway, after getting stuffed with a bunch of chicken meat, the tryptophan contents put each and every one of them to sleep rather quickly, within half an hour even. The team crashed. These woods were mostly safe, so it was unlikely that they were going to get attacked at night, while they were sleeping, no. If anything, predators would be attracted to the cockatrice remains more, as its remains were very pungent, it’s guts especially! The team was otherwise to be left alone, most likely.
…
The city of Figus was far away from the shorelines, but the team managed to get to it nonetheless. They had been up and walking about ever since the break of dawn, and it had been a tiresome journey, but they made it here and that was all that mattered. They made it to their first check-point!
This city was a check-point because amongst other things, it was an entrance to civilization! A functional civilization had quite the effect on one’s mind, for multiple reasons.
Arvena’s guests came from the sea, for example, and the sea wasn’t so friendly to anyone. There weren’t many functional, massive civilizations in the sea, no, there were just a bunch of species who killed each other, by instinct. Things were even more chaotic in the sea, when once considered that plenty of species were armed with magical powers there, so there was nothing structural about the sea! Sure there were a bunch of sects within it, but that wasn’t enough for the depths to be considered civilized.
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A serving example was that the team got very nervous when they saw whole groups of goblins within the city. They weren’t used to seeing groups of creatures, and they were nervous about this scenario as a result, because out in the open seas, such groups were rarely a good thing! This cited a point regarding civilization, it was really structural, and functional, everyone was just minding their own business and no one was at any risk of blatant, mindless violence. There were plenty of guards around whose duty was to enforce any, and all law too!
Tim and the rest walked in the city, but they were still pretty nervous, so they were keeping their hands close to their weapons. They didn’t want to suffer any surprise attacks, from any of the hundreds of degranus goblins that roamed the street, so they remained cautious!
That aside, the city was otherwise really beautiful. There was a sea of red-roof tiling that covered the residential, and or trading areas, to the point where one would think that the city had an infinite supply of red clay!
Paired with stone foundations and detailing, this city was a textbook example of a fancy, medieval domain! It was rich, functional, and characteristic, one wouldn’t even be able to believe that goblins built such a great city!
Yet again, it was also easy to believe the latter, because most buildings were barely two meters tall. They were sculpted to meet the needs of the average, three-foot tall goblin, and this was perhaps how the city expanded to begin with? It wasn’t gravely difficult to build these small homes.
Anyway, Arvena and the team were here with a purpose, the city of Figus had something to offer to them, other than its red-tiled beauty. Goblins were cave-dwellers, by nature, so even though they were dwelling in a city now, it wouldn’t be a surprise if their ancestors had lived in caves back then. In this case, there were a bunch of elaborate cave systems and ruins, right below the city!
These were not the ruins of Aqumus, no, those ruins were still very far away. They were to go to the Gubus ruins now, and although the latter one didn’t offer as much mana, it still offered a challenge. The challenge was to survive there, primarily, and if they could survive, they’d have killed the aggressive creatures within the ruins. These creatures, when dead, oozed mana!
It was custom to bring visiting, mana-seeking adventurers to these ruins, because it would prepare them for the following couple of check-points, which were higher in difficulty. The sea creatures within the vicinity of the Aqumus ruins, where most of the harvestable mana lied, were far more horrid in comparison, they were really hard to kill, so it was ideal to get a bit of training here first.
“Half of the Gubus ruins have been overflown, so, it’s great that you guys were fish before. We’re gonna have to do a lot of swimming if the three of you are to survive.” Arvena explained, she was direct about the matter.
“I’ve dealt with crazed, green fish before, and managed to kill most of them. So don’t worry, your little caves won’t be able to kill me, hehe.” Tim boasted, half arrogantly.
“We’ll see,” She sighed.
Then, they headed towards an otherwise desolated, eastern-edge of the city. Figus wasn’t surrounded by any protective walls, so it was easy to exit the city, without any tagalong surveillance over one’s shoulders. Anyone could leave, whenever they wanted to!
This desolated area was close to a rocky, mountain-side, and unsurprisingly, there were a bunch of caves here too. The entrance was said to be either one of these caves, and the team got their torches ready with the motive to enter one of them!