*BOOM* *click* *click* *THUD* *THUD*

Suddenly Barker was roused very quickly from his sleep as 10 tonnes of solid snow/ice fell on him from far above.
Barker, having spend the night under the southern citadel, looked straight up at the new gaping hole in the mountain citadels floor, covering his eyes with his paws as suddenly an ever increasing brightness filled the cavern, reflecting and deflecting of the varying surfaces of ice around him.

Realizing once more “he was deep underground” Barker quickly deduced the citadel as the cause of both his rude awakening and now terrible searing eye pain, keeping both eyes closed as the light continued to increase its intensity, Barker slowly proceeded to make his way out of the cavern one paw in front of the other, as fast as he would dare, so as to alert his master to his find.

suddenly as quickly as the light had arrived it was gone, replaced almost seamlessly with a sudden high pitched SCREECH that filled the cavern even quicker and longer than the light.

———-

Mace looked down at his handy work, sure enough the Ice Phoenix of lore, did indeed reside in the very bowl of the South Citadel. finding itself free for the first time in centuries, the phoenix let out an earth shattering squeal, “more like a roar” Mace noted later, before escaping through the new gaping hole in the citadel floor, that hadn’t been there moments before.

That should keep that meddling lostpenguin lord busy thought Mace (finally acknowledging Larry’s his new title).  None of what had just happened surprised Mace, but what he hadn’t expected to find though was that meddling Lupin Pup from before, Barker was once more hot on his heels, and would no doubt inform his ever more unpredictable master of what he had just discovered.

Chuckling to himself, Mace wondered who would get to there targets first, the now almost fully grown lupin pup or the Ice Phoenix now speeding to free its mate from its Northern Prison.