World of Lah

The garden

When the storm has quieted down, the team continued the journey back to the Forest Realm. Fortunately the found the horses by the time they were ready to go. The road was just as long, if not longer. Now, they went in the direction of the realm's eastern side to the Hippo Garden. Dion, while he was waiting, followed the usual steps to read the letter. The crystal became pink. By putting the mirror on it, the words became understandable.

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"Through icy fields you need a tactic,
But you may not be able to use magic,
Where snow and ice never melts,
Even the ground breaks for someone else."

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-"So after the hot desert comes a freezing mountain?" -Kira asked.

-"I can't wait to survive an avalanche after a sandstorm." -Rocky said. He was in a bad mood, as always.

-"Don't say that." -Aisha warned him. -"We have enough problems as it is."

-"Yeah, the titan made our journey even more difficult." -Kira commented simply.

-"The titan?" -Aisha asked, not understanding it. She didn't know how Kira knows that.

-"Oh, right, I forgot you're not from around here."

Dion started to inform Aisha.

-"Titans are capable of causing natural catastrophes, depending on where they live. Desert titans are able to summon sandstorms."

-"So...you think that this was Parallax' work?" -Aisha asked for more information.

-"I'm sure it was him. He doesn't want us to stop him."

Dion looked at Rocky.

-"We cannot prove it, we don't know where he came from, and even if he came from here, he wouldn't be the only titan around...but it would be logical to think it was him."

-"Shortly, that's all."

-"How could he possibly knew what we wanted to do?" -Aisha asked.

-"This is what we don't know yet." -Dion replied.

-"I see..." -Aisha said and she fell into deep thinking. She thought about how will they defeat him if he's so powerful. He must have a weak point, they just didn't know what.

In the meantime they reached the border and they could see that nature was dying even more so, than when they left. The plants dried away, animals were barely visible. This reminded them why they need to defeat Parallax. They went into the woods and turned to east. Walking among the dried flowers and rotten trees was quite a depressing feeling. But the sun already set and in this environment they were not capable to set up a camp, but they couldn't continue their journey either. In a lack of good ideas they rested in a clearing on the ground. They were out of food and they had little water, but they couldn't have done anything about it at the time. They weren't able to sleep pleasantly either, but they did rested a small amount.

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They woke up at dawn. They thought, it is better to to reach the city as soon as they can. Kira, while sitting on Aya, examined the map.

-"Did we already left that big rock-" -She begun, but a sudden strong gust of wind teared the map out of her hands and it flew far away. Kira angrily punched a tree with her fist. -"Great! This is what we've been missing!"

-"It's okay. We will surely find a way." -Aisha tried to comfort her.

-"Be not afraid." -Said an unknown voice.