178 Bog and Fog (2/2)

And then an absolutely colossal figure appeared out of nowhere, blotting out the sky in its shadow. It was like the entire day had turned to night in an instant, and then turned back into day again, except that now it was a little bit brighter than before, because the serpentine shadow above was gone.

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[What was THAT?!] Mindy gasped.

[That was gramps!] Aeyrie perked up, immediately cheered. [He just came out to grab a quick bite! We have to go after him! That way!]

[But what about the others…]

[What about them?] Aeyrie asked, frank and uncaring.

[We have to get them out!]

[How? If we wander around much more, we might get caught up in the dream-state ourselves again. Let's get ourselves out of here first.]

Over to the left, there was loud hissing, and then a scream.

[They're going to die out here…!] Mindy gasped. [We have to help them!]

[Not by ourselves! We have to get to Gramps. He can help us.] Aeyrie urged. [The Bog and the Serpents are more than we can handle.]

Mindy hated to admit it, but she was right. As things stood, they were of no help to anyone. [All right. Let's go get your Gramps.]

***

The journey through the Bog was arduous, at best. Several times, Mindy almost wandered off into another dream-state before Aeyrie smacked her awake. Likewise, she had to rap the Eagle Princess on the head sharply a few times whenever the bird's eyes started to glaze over and her feet began to wander.

The dreams Mindy faced were bewildering, familiar, yet unfamiliar. They felt as if they'd already happened, even though Mindy was sure later that they never took place.

For example, twice she found herself fighting George, and he had his ME-Frame equipped, and so did she…

At one time, she caught Tim flying her airship.

On three separate occasions, old friends whose names she could barely remember came by and had lunch, dinner and tea with her respectively.

There was even this one case of Arnold dressing up as a clown to perform a balancing act for three new airships to learn from. He kept telling the airships to pay attention and learn how to balance themselves, but all three basically just floated there, ignoring him.

There were even weirder dreams that made absolutely no sense. Some of them, Mindy clear forgot the instant she woke up.

All told, it was a rough trip, and it lasted for hours.

But at last, they set foot on solid grass, and left the fog a few inches behind them.

”Now, what?” Mindy asked.

”Chirp.” [Now we go up the mountain.]

”Mountain…?” Mindy looked about and trailed off. ”Wait. You mean… THAT mountain?!”

In the distance, a huge cliff loomed over them. It was so high, Mindy hadn't even thought of trying to climb up it. She had actually been looking around for a pass or a tunnel to get through.

But Aeyrie nodded. [Gramps is at the very top.]

Mindy grimaced. ”Can we go around it, or skip it altogether?”

[There are eight other mountains in this range, and every one of them is ruled by a King. Which one do you want to cross?]

Mindy's face fell. ”Never mind.”

She drew herself up. Aeyrie fluffed her feathers a bit, and the pair of them turned their gazes to the cliff ahead of them.

”Let's go climb a mountain.”