The ruins of Aqumus were oozing with harvestable mana, the pce has been like that for thousands of years now! No oruly uood why the pce was so ri 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 asded to a new, celestial home that he made for himself! The rich mana quantities were supposedly fras of air that the creator had breathed before, and the air was so dehat it refused to dissolve over thousands of years nardless of the circumstances. Furthermore, ohese ruins sank, it is believed that the sea was given air for the fish to breathe in, before that, the sealife ractically ent!

  These cumutive legends ended up giving birth to a couple ions, ever sihe 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 firm those great legeirely, but most mages chose to believe them anyway. They felt important ohey imagihat they were harvesting mana, in the very pce where the creator of Valporovus oood, it was quite a legend for oo follow. Any mage would love to attain a tiny fra of greatness, and or prestige that the creator bore, they’d dream of it!

  Anyway, legend or not, the fact of the matter remaihese ruins were very ri mana, regardless of where that mana came from, and the team was eager to harvest as much of it as they could, they waress rapidly! There were other pces where mana was also free to harvest, but those pces were too far aractically 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 dahat were stashed in them, however, this didn’t necessarily mean that the ruins were close by. Despite its his micro-universe was actually the size of a tiny p, or half of ph, which retty sizable once square metrics were put in the equation. Now the universe wasn’t curved like a p, no, but it was still pretty big, so the important pces weren’t so easy to reach, great journeys were mandatory if one was tress!

  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 rimarily 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 ied knees, so I don’t really uand why you’re struggling. Maybe the knee pad is ping you or something? It shouldn’t be a big deal, you’ll get the hang of this walking thiually.” Arvena first said, as she scratched her head in fusion.

  Afterwards, she added, “Also, yes, it will take us a day or so to get there, maybe until tomorrow at te noon? It’ll be dusk soon, and that’s really cutting into our traveling time, because soota make camp for the night. It’s annoying to camp, yes, but we get to Figus even earlier tomorrow, if we wake up and start walking in the m, I’m sure of that!”

  “No rush, camping sounds good.” Tim seded, as he didn’t really care about mana for the moment. He just wao rest, as that would keep him from walking funny.

  The woods were unfortably close to the beach, so they had to walk through the woht away, which was a bit unfortable for them. This pce was weird, proportion-wise, but they tried to manage as best as they could.

  This part of the journey wasirely bad. There was a dirt path iween 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, fortable 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 theightened his fists as he sed the sky.

  He then promised, “We’re not pying h a fug dragon, I’m putting a hole through that motherfucker! Thunder kill it, right?”

  Arvena was fused by the other’s raw, and seemingly unreasonable fear, she was stumped. It took her a moment to uand his rea, but she caught up once she remembered that her guests were fn to this nd, very fn! 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 chi and a bat. Ugly creatures for sure, but they’re not nearly actual, huge dragons, hell no! Actually, if we py our cards right, that horny thing be our dinner for the night. Chi tastes really good, trust me!”

  “My question remains, then, thunder kill it, dy?” 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 i 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 si, and then, we’ll eat.” She expined.

  “What?” Tim asked, helplessly, and then he yelled out. “I’m not getting fucked by a chi, never!”

  “Rooster, teically.” 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 beeed 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 mao attrae 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 mueeded, soft, sunshine.

  “I ’t believe that they catch food this way, she better know what she’s fug doing!” Timothy pined.

  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 crag a joke, he said. “Cock-a-trice, hah! Well at least we 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!”