The Abiteth barely misses its catch as it reaches for the Dream Machine. One large swipe from its spider legs would be enough to slice the Dream Machine in half from the balloon to its wheels and suction pipe. The one leg swishes past it the Dream Machine, blowing the afterburning of its wind against it and tumbling it sideways. The wind tumbling it into losing its balance to stay afloat affects the passengers onboard. The reaction has made Dreamfinder fall off of his chair and onto Rachel. His eyes widen at the sight of Rachel's granted wish she secretly wished for from her necklace.

          Above him, at Rachel's feet, he sees a metal weapon in her hands with a handle, six barrels and a trigger: a mini gun. Cold and black was its image. It has a built-in rocket launcher at the center and is carried like an assault rifle. Where the heck did that thing come from, Dreamfinder thought to himself. Seeing it in Rachel's hands it must be hers. The shine of the sun reflects onto the gun and brightens onto Rachel's angered face. Her eyes are squinting from the sunlight, her brows are crunched down and wrinkled, her hands are tightly gripped onto the gun, and her teeth are clenched with great irritation.

"Get behind me, Dreamfinder!" Rachel shouts. She stomps to the side of the Dream Machine. Loaded and ready to shoot she lifts her left leg to the railing and shouts, "Eat led, Crab-Gut!"

"Rachel!" Dreamfinder also shouts.

          But Rachel ignores him and pulls the trigger. She aims the gun in a circle as the R.I.P. bullets shoot out rapidly from the gun and they fly straight toward the mouth of the beast. Each area of the Abiteth the bullets hit immediately blasts into a crater of organic gush and mush. The monster shrieks in agony falling back from the bullets. Rachel's screams are also muted from the Abiteth's. A few of the bullets have already hit four of the Abiteth's eyes and chip off most of the decayed teeth from the mouth.

          Meanwhile, Alex and Figment are trying to keep the pipes and steam engines cooled off. It had become difficult, however, since the Abiteth's attempts to thwart the Dream Machine has put them in a more wobbly position. Back and forth to two friends are being tossed around like a salad. Some of the pipes are beginning to break off and spew out some dream steam followed by a whistling sound. Alex takes out a wrench he had brought from home and tries to screw the pipes back into place. Poor Figment is hanging onto the rail for dear life as he is being swayed in all directions of the air screaming.

          As Rachel continues shooting at the beast, Dreamfinder struggles to get back to his seat and the controls to the air ship. He rolls away from her and crawls back to the side of the seat. His arms grab the farther side of the chair and he quickly pulls himself up. Planted back where he is needed to be, the Dreamfinder pushes and pulls the left lever forward and the right one backwards. The balloon of the Dream Machine grew bigger with more air lifting everyone higher and higher away from the Abiteth monster. Doing this has stabilized the aircraft despite the winds of the Abiteth's legs swooshing them away from it. Rachel withdraws her firearm as the Dream Machine pulls her away from her reach. Just as she does, Alex and Figment return to her and Dreamfinder to see what is happening.

"Yeah! How do you like that?" Rachel shouted.

"Uh, Rachel..." Dreamfinder spoke in a nervous tone, "I know that we're in a serious situation here but was the gun really, well...necessary?"

"You want a giant spider-squid monster to jump up and kill us?" Rachel asked.

"Yikes!" Figment exclaims. "It's even scarier like this than before."

"That's because it's bigger!" Alex confirms. "That size is big enough to destroy all of Iyra City lickety-split!"

"Or any sort of city for that matter." Dreamfinder added.

"Maybe an entire state if it gets angry or hungry enough." said Rachel. "But at least we're high enough now."

"Don't jinx it!" Figment shouts.

"How? We're going high enough for it not to reach us, aren't we?"

"We ought to." said Dreamfinder. "A high temperature like this should make us ascend higher. If this were colder temperature, we'd be going up much slower."

"Then why are we going slower than faster?" Figment asked.

"Perhaps there is something colder around here that's causing it." Alex guesses.

"That may be relevant." Dreamfinder agrees. "But what could be holding us down?"

"Uh...guys?" Rachel interrupts.

"What?"

"Trouble at four o'clock!"

          Below them, the Abiteth opens its mouth wide revealing the blood-rot teeth and long whipping tongue. Its fore legs spring the creature upward to the back of its shell. Out of its mouth the monster begins to gargle a gruesome purplish-green pool of goop. The monster then starts shooting the goop into big blobs at an incredible force like a cannon. Some of them have hit the Dream Machine and its balloon and have once again started tossing the four friends out of balance. One of those blobs have hit up to the bottom side of the balloon right above them. Falling onto their skin it drips down onto them in very sticky drooping drops twice the size of a man's fist. The very touch of it is enough to chill a bear into hibernation during the summer. Surprising screams are shot out from the Dreamfinder and his friends.

"Agh! It's cold!" Figment shouts.

"But how? It's over a hundred sidkas out here!" Alex points out.

"Sidkas?"

"To the humans, a hundred sidkas are referred to as a hundred degrees."

"Very neat! I'll be sure to put that in my vocabulary."

"Focus. Please!" Dreamfinder shouts.

"Wait a minute! I think I might know the answer to this!" Rachel shouts.

"The sidkas?" Figment guesses.

"No, the goop itself! This is the same goop we were covered with back in the cave...or shell or whatever it is and—"

"Aw gross!" Alex exclaims with disgust.

"Moving along, when that happened did anyone notice how cold it was getting in there?"

"I did feel a sudden chill go up my spine when I breathed that gas and while I was sleeping." Figment admits.

"I...That-that's right! Me too." Dreamfinder also said. "But what's that got to do with right now?"

"Hear me out..." Rachel began, "you know how a bear hibernates through the winter because it's so cold to live through, or how some reptiles become sleepy in the cold, or perhaps how we're not as motivated to do anything without sunlight? Cold temperatures can most of the time lead us to be a lot more dormant to do anything at all. So when the creature infected us with the gas and this goop—"

"Its fashioned itself into a kind of tranquilizing drug to weaken our senses," Dreamfinder realizes, "therefore gradually sending us into what it seemed like a lackadaisically, yet strangely heavy suspended animation into our demise as a dietary organic fodder for its appetition!"

"What?" everyone exclaims in confusion.

"Drug us to sleep so it could eat us." Dreamfinder clarifies.

"Yes! Ten points for Gryffindor!" Rachel shouts.

"Thanks...I think. But I still don't understand where you're getting at."

"Think of it this way: you just said that colder temperatures would make the balloon not rise as high or fast enough. We were just flying higher from the monster up until it started shooting that goop at us."

"And if that's the case, then maybe..." Dreamfinder gets up and looks to the side of the balloon frantically. His eyes widen as he sees the goop from the Abiteth sizzling onto the fabric. He then confirms, "By George, Rachel, I think you've got it! It's the temperature of the goop that is making up rise slower, or worse yet, shrinking. So long as the creature keeps shooting it at us, we'll all be sitting ducks!"

"Well now that we've solved the goop mystery, how are we supposed to defeat this thing?" Alex points out.

"Hmm...hot deserts..." Dreamfinder then starts to brainstorm an idea thinking "cold cave...freezing goop...I can only assume that this creature is very much warm-blooded. It hates the hot desert sun out here and its cave-like shell is the only source of cold temperature out here."

"What are you thinking, Dreamfinder?" asked Figment.

"If there is a way to get that thing out of the shell and into the sunlight, its chances of surviving it are between very slim to none."

"And just how are we going to get it out?" Rachel asked.

"Easy!" Figment exclaims. He suddenly imagines himself wearing a puffy vest and a bucket hat decorated with fishhooks. At his side appears a small bucket of worms squirming all over each other like tiny snakes. And in his hands, a fishing rod comes out with a rubber grip on the handle and vast length of a fishing line. As his transformation materializes, Figment immediately reacts to his plan saying, "We fish it out!"

"Hmm...that sounds a bit barmy on the crumpet," said Dreamfinder as he brushes his beard with a finger and thumb, "but that might just work."

"Uh...that sounds like a great idea in all, Figment," said Alex, "but don't you think we're going to need a much bigger and much sturdier rod to catch that thing?"

"Hmm...you're right, Alex. Hey! Maybe we can use the Dream Machine as a fishing rod!"

"You mean put a trawling net on the bottom of the airship to catch it and pull it into the desert?" Rachel suggested.

"I don't know what trawling means, but I understood the rest of what you've said. So yes!"

"This could work!" Dreamfinder agrees. "Imagining one to become real should be easy enough. The only problem is how we can get a trawling mechanism under it without getting hit by that beast."

"I can keep shooting at it." Rachel offered.

"Personally, Rachel I'd hate for you to do that some more, but I guess that's the only line of defense we've got."

"So it's settled then. I shoot at the beast, while you two lower Dreamfinder down and under the Dream Machine so he can install it."

"Not to complain, but I don't know if Figment and Alex can carry me so far down."

"It's true." said Figment. "The first two times I tried to carry Dreamfinder he's much too heavy for me to carry both alone and with help."

"Which isn't to say I'm overweight or anything like that."

"I'll go." Alex volunteers. "Dreamfinder may be heavy, the trawler might be too heavy for Figment to carry, and next to Dreamfinder I'm the only other person who knows who to use a wrench and a hammer."

"I'm heavy?" Dreamfinder barks, realizing Alex's use of words at him.

"Alright, you guys get on it." Rachel orders. "I'll go deal with this creep."

"Right!" Figment and Alex say together.

"Hey Alex!"

"Yeah?" Alex replies.

"Be careful." said Rachel with her eyes slightly loosened from the determined scrunch on her forehead.

          Giving a nod back Alex joins with Dreamfinder and Figment to prepare the trawling net, while Rachel prepares for her second round with the desert monster. Both Figment and Dreamfinder tie some ropes around Alex extra tight so he would not fall off the ship. The last thing anyone wants is to become the creature's lunch.

          But as Figment puts in the finishing touches on the young Katkin, Dreamfinder runs inside the cabin and to his room. On each side of the door are shelves full of a variety of books, most of them about scientific theories and mechanisms over the ages. He drags his finger across the lines of books until he quickly pulls out a book he found most suitable for this event. The title cover read "Gone Fishin': The History, the Methods and the Mechanics of Fishing" with a picture of small picture of hundreds of small fishing boats on a lake. Each of the fishermen sat in their boats with their lines dangling in the water with only one fish swimming around by itself. Seeing how the cover is printed looks a little misleading since they added a history section, the artist technically should have put in pictures of old boats from different time periods.

          Dreamfinder could think critically about this, but this is not the time. He flips the pages abruptly, nearly ripping a couple of them in the process. Finally, he finds a picture of a machine that pulls and lets go of a giant net. On the top of the first page it reads "Trawling Nets." This is just what he needs! Dreamfinder takes the book and runs back to his friends where he finds Figment already lowering Alex to the underside of the Dream Machine. Upon arrival, his brain whirls with the image of the trawling net from the book to appear in his hands. Being a Dreamfinder, whatever thought runs in his mind so long as it is pure and well focused, that thought turns into reality. Dreamfinder thinks hard and pictures the trawling net in his mind. In an immediate response, the net appears in front of him along with the winding mechanism to pull and let go and fell to the floor with a loud thud. Taking what is left of the rope, the Dreamfinder straps up the mechanism with it facing upside down and the net wound up. He then ties the ropes into loops on the railing at the side of the ship, puts the end of the rope under his foot, lifts the mechanism and then starts lowering it to Alex, who is already underneath the Dream Machine.

          The young Katkin sees the net with the winding mechanism lowering to him. He swings a little to grab it. A smile lights up on his furry face when he does. Alex pulls it back to his position where an unused spot of the underside is left bare. Out of his pocket Alex pulls out a weird fob that is as big is his hand. The fob opens up into a compatible battery powered hand drill. And with any luck, the screws would fit perfectly into the little holes that will keep the mechanism intact without falling. He puts the upside down winding mechanism against the underside and starts drilling the screws in the holes.

          The gun has been reloaded in time before the Abiteth jumps into the air again and take another swipe at the Dream Machine. The only advantage to that, as Rachel could see, is that the weight of the giant shell the creature is living in adds a lot of weight for it to fall down much faster. It would be a much greater advantage for the shell to actually break and reveal the creature's much smaller size if the surface ground were made of concrete instead of just sand. As the Abiteth reaches up to the airship with its eyes darting at the girl with the weapon, Rachel loads the gun and starts shooting again. She manages to blast off a couple more eyeballs into gush and mush making the Abiteth cry out a terrible shriek. Its tentacles barely miss grasping onto the balloon that keeps the Dream Machine afloat. The shell it houses in begins to fall first pulling the creature down with it. From what looks like a very long way down from the Dream Machine, it may be just a short fall for the creature to hit. When it hit the ground, the sand dunes puff up into very large dust clouds. All seems quiet at the moment. Not another cry or any sign of movement. The Abiteth has got to be dead now. Perhaps that was all there was to it.

"Is it dead?" Rachel murmurs. "Did I kill it?"

          Yuna, who has been hiding in the sapphire necklace Rachel wished for the gun from, flies out of the necklace swiftly without giving the Dreamfinder any notice of her presence to join Rachel. She sits on the farther side of Rachel's shoulder where none of her friends would see.

"Yuna?" said Rachel. "Is it dead and gone yet?"

Without thinking, Yuna replies "No. You've only just made it angrier."

          But then Rachel watches the dust clouds move slightly in a quickening pace. It's not over yet. The creature is still alive within the sand. Rachel pulls the trigger from the mini gun, but no bullets come out.

"Damn it, I'm out!" Rachel growls.

          Suddenly, without warning, the Abiteth shoots out more of its freezing goop. Only this time, they are coming out in much larger sizes than the last batch. The purple-green colors of the goop are reflecting from the sunlight as they zip straight towards Rachel and her friends. One of them makes a hard splatter onto the side of the balloon, sending the Dream Machine flying backwards. Alex was halfway through with attaching the mechanism to the bottom of the airship when it happened. The forceful wind has the Katkin waving and dangling away from it like a flag. He grabs onto one of the steam pipes while trying to keep the mechanism up from falling by the tips of his fingers. Figment and Dreamfinder fall back also where Dreamfinder loses his hat off the side of the airship like back in Iyrilia. Their hands are still tightly holding onto the ropes that are supporting Alex and the trawling net.

          Seeing the Dream Machine taking a large blow from its goop attack, the Abiteth takes another jump out of the giant dust cloud. Its mouth opens wide enough to gobble the entire Dream Machine whole. With the creature soaring fast up in the air the fears of the four friends begin to rise up even fiercer than before. The goop in the Abiteth's open mouth gargles wildly. Rachel's eyes widen at the sight. She throws her empty gun at the monster, hitting it on one of its working eyes. As it starts to fall down again blinded, the Abiteth makes an accidental shot out of a goopy ball straight at Rachel, but Rachel doesn't move. She is frozen with fear. Dreamfinder, who had recovered from the blow, watches the creature make its maneuver happen. Figment loudly calls out to his creator, but Dreamfinder ignores it. He quickly jumps to his feet and runs straight to Rachel. Just as the goop is about to touch Rachel, Dreamfinder makes like a human shield, pushes Rachel out of the way and gets blasted off and covered in Abiteth's gruesome goop. A small chunk of it, as big as a man's fist, gets into Dreamfinder's mouth and he swallows it.

          The taste and after of the goop is so disgusting it has left the poor man hacking and choking until tears flooded his eyes. It tasted like vomit mixed with the smell of lamp oil, gas and sewage. And the worst part is that it tastes even more terrible when it's cold. Dreamfinder tries to throw it all back out over the side of the Dream Machine, but it wouldn't. The goop had solidified into a tacky blob in his throat. The more attempts he has tried, the worse the taste gets onto his taste buds.

"Agh! Blegh! Gross!" Dreamfinder cries.

"Dreamfinder!" Rachel yells. "Dreamfinder, are you alright?"

"Ack! Yeah. Yes dear, I'm alright."

"What? What'd you call me?" she asks.

"Uh...I called you 'Rachel,' Rachel." said Dreamfinder awkwardly. Underneath the goop, his cheeks begin to blush again.

"Okay...gross! You've swallowed a bit of that stuff."

"You don't have to tell me twice."

"Will you be alright?"

"I do hope so. Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I am. Thanks." Rachel smiles.

"Good." said Dreamfinder.

"Dreamfinder! Rachel!" Figment calls out from the other side of the Dream Machine.

"Are you guys okay?" Alex shouts.

"We're fine!" said Rachel. "At least, I hope Dreamfinder is."

"I'm good!" Dreamfinder confirms. "Are you almost done, Alex?"

"I've got about a screw or two to go." said Alex as he wipes the sweat off his forehead with his arm. "I need a little more time."

"Okay! I'll keep the Dream Machine moving for a while until you