freeZe didn't wake up in ten minutes, she didn't wake up in thirty minutes, she didn't wake up in an hour, not in two hours, not in six hours.
Fire said: "I am starting to worry."
"Only now? I started six hours ago." Ambigious said angrily.
Unchosen said: "What can we do? It is still snowing and storming."
"I really do not like how this turned out…" TehLulz complained.
They had been sitting in the little cave Fire dug doing nothing. Fire had gone mining for an hour, only finding a small vein of coal.
Unchosen looked at Fire and asked him: "How exactly did this happen? You didn't tell us earlier."
Fire cleared his throat and replied: "She managed to activate the core but the pull was too strong and she could not stop the energy flow, she could hinder it but not completely stop it." He sighed. "It was my fault, I shouldn't have let her use such a powerful artefact, I am surprised she lived to be honest."
"And what about the core now? How did you stop it from eating all of her energy?" TehLulz asked.
"You remember how I enchanted the core in the Nether, right? The simple activation of the core would be very easy but the hard part was empowering it and lowering the risk when using it."
"You didn't lower it enough." Ambigious interrupted.
Fire began talking again: "That is why I used a very complicated ritual, see this pentagram in the core? I put the symbol on it when I saw that she couldn't handle it. The pentagram is a symbol without a meaning of its own, I had to define what it does in the enchantment." A few seconds later he added: "Don't look at me like that Ambigious, she is still alive and she should be back on her feet soon, six hours is enough for her to refill most of her life force."
"Good to hear that." Ambigious answered.
A surprised look came to his face as freeZe actually moved as if she would have heard him.
"Hey Fire, talking about that, look who is waking up." Ambigious said with a smile.
freeZe moved and opened her eyes, which were not shining as green as usual.
"Hey, freeZe!" Ambigious said.
She tried to speak but all that came out were words slurred beyond comprehension.
TehLulz grinned, so did Unchosen and Fire.
Ambigious asked: "Huh?"
She spoke again, more coherently this time but still unintelligible, coughed and then corrected herself: "How long was I asleep?"
Her voice was still weak but it was clearly just her being sleepy.
"What happened?" freeZe asked.
Fire took a deep breath and started explaining: "I was talking to you about magic, remember that?"
"Kind of…"
"You wanted to try if you had enough life force to be a mage. You do. The core pulled almost all life force from your body, I was almost too late to shut the core off. See it there?"
He pointed at the core, which was now floating above the burning wood block.
"All those red sparks, this is my life force?"
"Was, it was your life force, now it is magical energy of the Fire element. You can't get it out of there as long as the rune is active, which will be forever unless someone unlocks it."
"What happens to the core now?" Ambigious asked.
"My sister will have to unlock it in a magical containment field, then we will also be able to tell how much life force freeZe put in there."
"Could you unlock it?" freeZe asked.
"If you want us all to die in an explosion that decapitates this mountain and evaporates the whole glacier… Then yes."
"Oh…" freeZe replied "Was it that much?"
"I don't know how much exactly is in there but red sparks are usually very powerful, that combined with the enchantments I put on the core, it is pretty devastating."
"So, Fire, how much life force did you use to activate it when you were lighting the fire?" Ambigious asked, he still was a little confused, magic wasn't his thing.
Fire answered: "It was not really much, just a few grey sparks, they are some of the least powerful ones, even weaker than the yellow ones. The power of sparks increases exponentially as their color gets more intense. Although the measurement of sparks is only used in theoretical research on magic and spell cost calculations, irrelevant to most mages in practice."
freeZe lifted an eyebrow, which was only visible by her left eye getting bigger.
"Sounds like a lot. How didn't you sense all that energy before?" She asked.
Fire scratched his head and explained: "You remember what the Wither cultists said, right? They can see how much energy is inside something or someone, I can only sense energy flow and at the time you were in the quarry you didn't use any magic. The cultists did mention someone having a lot of energy though… I should have caught onto that. In my defense, I was quite hungry when they mentioned it."
TehLulz hinted: "As much as I would like to listen to you talking about magic, we should go now, if you can, freeZe."
Fire agreed: "He is right. freeZe, can you stand up?"
"I'll try." She said and leaned on her right arm. "Might work…" She added and tried to stand up but fell back down on half the way. "Ouch…"
Fire sighed and got out Brad's bag again.
Unchosen asked: "What potion is it this time?"
Fire replied: "I made this one myself, I just told Brad to give it to me in the bag."
He pulled out a round bottle with a shining golden liquid inside, it seemed to draw the light around it to itself.
"See how the light collects around it? That is golden apple concentrate, extremely powerful, everybody just gets a drop."
They felt energized by the potion and even freeZe could stand up as if nothing had happened. Fire removed the snow in front of the entrance and looked into a dark blue sky.