I opened my eyes and found myself staring up at towering trees that stretched several meters above. The sight triggered an immediate sense of panic as if these colossal trees might come crashing down on me at any moment.
'Where am I? ' I thought as I looked at the trees covered in a white substance that looked so much like snow.
"Snow?" I said as I was filled with momentary feelings of disarray and dread.
'What am I doing here? ' I wondered as I continued looking up without attempting to sit up.
I was just back at home so what was I doing in the strange place? Tears welled up in my eyes as a familiar sense of fear washed over me. This location seemed eerily familiar, and it was linked to a strong feeling of dread.
"You're awake" a familiar voice rang into my ears. It sounded high-pitched and full of life.
I recognized it even before I turned to see who made the sound.
'Of course ' I thought with my brows furrowed in an angry motion.
I had been dreaming and this was my reality and not what I had seen in my dream.
For the umpteenth time, I wished that it wasn't a dream and was real instead. I never thought that I would ever think that but I missed home so much. Suddenly the feeling of emptiness and mental weariness that I felt at home paled in comparison to spending several hours (days or weeks even) in the Cold Lands.
"Hi Jess," Sky said as bubbly as ever.
She snapped me out of the various thoughts that were repeating in my mind. Thoughts about the dream I had.
"When did you wake?" I asked her as I sat up.
"Well, it's not been that long"
As she spoke I looked forward and found Hassan still dragging the Snow sled forward.
He held his palm upwards and on it, a black flame danced around.
His face bore a serious expression, unlike his usual blank expression. It seemed as if he was trying to concentrate.
'The medieval torch must have died since ' I thought.
I started to wonder if the snow sled had already recharged for the three hours.
"How are you feeling? " I asked Sky
"I'm better now. No longer exhausted"
I was glad about that. We all needed to be rested up about the Ice Bear challenge. Something about it made my bones shiver in fear.
Inside the forest, the moon's feeble light struggled to pierce the dense canopy, casting an eerie darkness. Unlike the open expanse of the snow-covered land, there was no raging snowstorm here, just a gentle drift of snowflakes adding to the mystique of the place.
"We found three dead bears on the way. You needed to see them. They're so humongous! Like! I almost pissed myself by just looking at them. They had huge claw marks all around their bodies. And from what I saw in my messages they were killed by their king." Sky explained.
The spark of excitement mixed in her frightened countenance was unmistakable.
Was she looking forward to a fight when she knew her combat skills were nonexistent?
"I bet that it wouldn't be long before we see another bear" She continued.
I had seen them before but hearing about them again also gave me the feeling of fear that I had felt when I saw their corpse outside the forest.
Lingering traces of sleep dulled my reactions, causing me to respond a bit slower than usual, as my body gradually shook off the remnants of slumber.
"How long do you estimate?" I asked
"I don't know, " Sky said.
None of us was with any device for measuring time so it was difficult for us to tell anything about time.
"Hey Hassan!"
As I called out to him, I noticed a fleeting furrow in his brow when he turned to glance at us, but it vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared.
"What is it?" he inquired, his tone carrying a hint of irritation. Whether it was because he didn't want to be engaged in conversation or simply due to the challenging nature of the Cold Lands, I couldn't tell. But regardless of his mood, I needed to understand our plan.
"What are you doing? "
This question even seemed to rile him more as his eyebrow twitched and slowly creased.
"The quest?" He said
"I know. How are we going to go about it?"
"I'm following the pile of corpses. It should lead us somewhere. "
"How about we attract it to us?" I suggested, but as soon as the words escaped my lips, I realized how foolish that sounded. It made more sense to catch the creature off guard rather than trying to lure it to us. And even if we wanted to attract it, how would we go about doing that?
"The snow sled" I yelled out before Hassan could talk about how stupid my plan was. "It makes a hell of a noise so it would be an ideal tool for luring the king of ice bears"
" No. That wouldn't work. Let's try to see if we can ambush the creature. " Sky said. "Then if we can't you can try your mind transfer thing to make it easier for Hassan to kill the creature "
Mind transfer? I hadn't used that for a while and the last time I used it was at the river with parasitic trees. And it failed horribly and Hassan almost lost his life then.
Since then, though I had won four battles against four psychic creatures I was reluctant to be sure that I could successfully do a mind transfer.
"And who knows if the creature is nearby to hear the noise of the Snow sled. Has the snow sled even finished charging? " Hassan said and turned to continue dragging the snow sled.
That's true.
'How long does the Snowsled have before it can move on its strange fuel? '
"I am awake now," I said to him "Let me off now"
When he stopped I climbed off the snow sled and Sky followed suit. So I had to dismiss the Snow sled into the inventory since we were no longer using it.
"Hey," Sky said as she approached me. We were trailing behind Hassan since we knew he could handle any potential threats. However, this also meant that our rear was exposed, making it vulnerable to surprise attacks. But Hassan couldn't be at many places at once.
"Hi," I said to her confused at the second greeting.
After a few awkward seconds, she continued "Thanks for the clothes. Hassan told me it was you"
"You're welcome "
"Do you happen to have water? "
"No"
The last time we had water was at the river where we just drank it without boiling it because we had nothing to do that with.
Then Sky was like "Fuck it! I'm going to die soon so why not drink this and hasten the process" She chuckled nervously as she spoke, fully aware that she was just as afraid of the creatures as she was of untreated water, which could be just as dangerous as the parasitic trees that surrounded its edge.
"My shop is so boring," Sky said after we walked some distance in silence.
It seemed like she was uncomfortable with the silence, perhaps attempting to distract herself from the fear that lay hidden in the darkness beyond Hassan's dark flames reach.
Hassan's dark flames were better than the medieval torches. They had a longer duration and cast a brighter light. Their illumination extended far enough for us to see several meters around us. I found it peculiar that black flames could provide such effective light, as I had always associated torches or flames with red or blue, not black.
My heart was pounding in my chest as we walked, our senses heightened, listening for any unwelcome company we wouldn't want to encounter.
When Sky realized that neither of us was in the mood for conversation, she ceased her idle chatter.
As we walked, we took great care not to produce any unnecessary noise that might draw attention, even from the smallest creatures. However, there were no animals in sight; it was as if the deranged creature had managed to drive them all out of the forest.
Our search began to feel increasingly futile as we continued to walk, finding no trace of the creature. Instead, all we came across were more ice bear corpses, each bearing grievous wounds and claw marks.
Our hopelessness took a different turn when we stumbled upon a group of five ice bear corpses clustered together. Up from the entrance of the forest until that point, we had only encountered single ice bear corpses scattered at different locations in the forest (Except the large number of ice bear carcasses that we saw in front of the entrance of the forest)
These five corpses appeared as if they had made a coordinated attempt to ambush the ice bear king, but they failed in their endeavor.