Skye is the Limit by Phenomenal Pen (detective books to read TXT) 📗

The other Dreamwalkers stared at him dumbfounded. They couldn’t decide whether to pat him on the back or call his idea the height of madness.

****

Northwards they went, passing once again through the Uncanny Valley and the rows of hedges where Ranger shouted: “No one eat anything from this place! It’s not safe.” Warrior, caught red-handed and awash with déjà vu, dropped a fruit that was striped yellow, green and red.

They heard and saw a passing herd of Indostan olifants. After that, chickens with human teeth, a black cat with curling horns, a flock of crows flying upside-down, a winged cow, several floating donkeys, and a crawfish that whistled and was better-equipped for mountain-climbing than them.

When they reached a familiar knoll, Ranger stopped and asked Mage: “I don’t suppose lightning’s gonna strike twice in the same place. Is it?”

“Not if you do not think so,” Mage answered matter-of-factly.

A familiar shadow loomed over them.

“RUUUUUUUUNNNN!!!!” Ranger screamed as the dragon swooped down. “TO THE FOREST!!!”

The others bolted like frightened rabbits over the knoll and down to the plain. Warrior assumed his bear shape and was the fastest while Blacksmith was the slowest. He was even slower than Mage, who proved very sprightly for an old man.

“GET DOOOOOOWWWWWWNN!!” Ranger shouted as he watched the dragon swoop behind Blacksmith.

Blacksmith dropped onto his stomach and the dragon snatched a hapless pink unicorn. The Dreamwalkers felt stormy gusts of wind as the dragon swept above them and then, far ahead, they saw the monster open its huge talons and drop the unicorn into the tall grass with a sickening thud.

The dragon wheeled to make another pass at them. Now that there was no Fairy to distract the monster, things were looking grim.

Please don’t breathe ice, please don’t breathe ice, Ranger prayed.

His prayer was answered because the dragon spewed a blazing pillar of fire as it glided to meet them. The column of fire looked like a giant lawnmower from their perspective, incinerating first Warrior, then Mage, Elf, Ranger, and finally Blacksmith, who just rolled into a fetal ball right where he had dropped.

****

A groan. And then a question: “Where are we?”

“Back at the starting point,” Blacksmith answered, mystified by the precision of the respawning.

“You mean we’ve been here before?” Elf asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“It does seem familiar,” Warrior said, twice confused because his words also felt familiar. 

“How many times have we been here?” asked Ranger.

Blacksmith looked unsure so Mage answered instead of him: “Only twice. This is our third time.”

“How many times do we need to keep doing this?”

“As many as it takes,” Mage answered. “Our latest plan was to reach the Save Point past the forest.”

“And rescue Fairy at the Orc Mother’s Nest,” Blacksmith said, nodding. “Yes, I remember…”

“How did we die the last time?” Elf asked.

“Dragon,” Mage answered. “It was not the same one that captured Fairy. The last one that we faced was a fire-breather.”

“How in God’s name do we beat a dragon?” Ranger asked, pinching the bridge of his nose. He was under a whole lot of stress.   

“Guys, I think I know how,” Blacksmith said. When the others turned to look at him, their jaws dropped.

Blacksmith was wearing a twenty-first century firefighter’s helmet, proximity suit, breathing tank, gloves and boots. Everything was a diluted gold color, glowing and sort of see-through because they were extensions of his Anima bracelet. With both hands, he held a firehose and behind him was a firetruck made of exactly the same gold energy. 

Just in front of his knees, the LED news ticker that had encircled Elf and Ranger in the first spawning now revolved around him. It said: ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: QUENCHING SKILL.

****

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