After reaching the summit everything got easier, the other side of the mountain had many cliffs but the snow was deep enough to safely fall down. They were heading towards the dense forest with the valley. They had already jumped and climbed down half the mountain. The golden apple concentrate was still giving them energy and sharpened their senses.
"I am still amazed by this potion, Fire. I can see all the way over to the end of this forest, is this how you see?" freeZe asked.
Fire laughed and replied: "Multiply the effect by five, add infrared and ultraviolet and then you have my vision."
"Wow, that's a lot."
"I could see you four sitting at the fire from all the way from my mining place when we were in the quarry, in full detail."
"What do you mean?" TehLulz asked.
"Like every color reflection on Ambigious' sunglasses or each hair on your heads." Fire answered.
They were a few meters away from another twenty-meter drop, Fire stepped towards the snow covered edge and looked down. Down there was snow, as expected, but he didn't know how deep the snow was and what was below it. He took a cobblestone piece out of his inventory and placed it, broke out a pebble with his claws and threw it down the drop. Absolutely no sound came back up, which meant it was safe.
"I'll jump first, then freeZe, then Unchosen, then TehLulz and then Ambigious." He said.
The others didn't question this order because Fire had already explained them that he went first himself because if there was something unexpected, he was more likely to survive it than the others.
This jump was safe, like every jump before it. Two meters of snow cushioned Fire's fall, which buried him up to his chest. After getting free he gave the others thumbs up and they also jumped down, Ambigious this time with a back flip.
"Was that really necessary Ambigious?" freeZe asked.
He answered: "Yup."
After a few minutes of silent walking Unchosen asked: "By the way Ambigious, your name, was writing Ambigious instead of Ambiguous on purpose?"
"It kinda was, I typed it wrong the first time for some reason but I noticed it. Then I just left it."
"I see." Unchosen answered.
After walking about a minute, Ambigious asked Unchosen: "What about you? TheUnchosenOne seems to be a name with a story behind it, at least to me."
"It indeed has a story behind it, when I was younger I never got lucky with anything, never won at luck based games and generally had circumstances conspire against me."
"Sounds depressing…" Ambigious said.
"It was at first but then it tried to take it with humor and actively embraced my lack of luck. As soon as I did that the bad things didn't seem as bad because I was expecting them. Over time I learned how to be one step ahead of the misfortune." Unchosen explained.
"That is a good way of going about it." Ambigious said.
"Yeah, once I got online choosing my handle was pretty straight forward." Unchosen said.
"What are you two needing so much time for?" They heard freeZe call and noticed they were twenty meters behind the others.
"Nope!" Ambigious shouted and sprinted towards his sister, before she knew what was going on, Ambigious had tackled her into the snow.
freeZe got up and said: "Not funny." TehLulz started laughing.
"But it is funny." He said and got hit in the face by a snowball, which again made Ambigious and Unchosen burst into laughter.
TehLulz wiped the snow from his face and grinned. "Worth it."
"You also want one?" freeZe asked while getting up.
"No…" Unchosen said.
Ambigious grinned "I would say no but I know you will shoot me either way."
"Try it." Fire said with a smile.
"Challenge accepted." freeZe said while making two more snowballs.
She threw the first one towards Ambigious, hitting him in the chest, which didn't do anything because of his jacket. freeZe moaned and turned around towards Fire, who was not wearing the warming nether wool clothes, only his ruined coat and pants. She threw her snowball.
Fire saw the snowball coming towards him, slowing down gradually. He leaned to the side, which made the snowball miss his left ear by a tiny bit. He could have just gone back to his normal position but Fire wanted to pull off a little show, part for fun and part to practice projectile management again. Combat was inevitably ahead of them so getting back into the groove was good.
Catching projectiles was important in a lot of situations, it prevented the projectile from harming anything behind him and at the same time tended to intimidate the one who had shot the projectile in the first place. This tactic had saved Fire a lot of unnecessary talking multiple times.
He turned around while still in the slow motion state and grabbed the snowball with his right hand, slowing it down by finishing the rotation. The same moment he came to a stop the slow motion state wore off, Fire smiled and dropped the snowball, then turned around and started walking again as if nothing happened.
"Are you four coming? We have to reach the forest before night falls."
It was evening when they arrived in the forest, they were all somewhat tired from the climb down the mountain and Fire was looking for a good place to sleep. They had taken off their jackets and the rest of the nether wool clothes.
"It is amazing how the trees look like real trees. How everything just looks like in real life." freeZe said.
Fire answered: "You'll see a lot more trees now that we're out of the desert. Talking of trees, this one over there seems to be suitable. Follow me."
Fire walked towards a large tree with lots of branches, it was a good twenty meters high and pretty much as wide. Fire extended his claws but not all the way, he used them to climb up the tree like a cat. When he arrived in the middle, he looked around, the tree was in fact very suitable, suitable for sleeping.
Fire bent some branches with leaves to form some kind of hammock, he repeated the process four more times and then called the others. There was almost no light left, almost absolute darkness for normal eyes but for Fire it was still pretty bright. He jumped down and formed a bowl with his hands.
"I'll help you up, step on my hands and I'll lift you." He said.
Ambigious stepped on Fire's hands first and supported himself on the tree as Fire lifted him up.
"Wow, it looks amazing up here! freeZe, you've got to see this!" Ambigious said.
freeZe got lifted up next, then Unchosen and then TehLulz, Fire climbed up last. Everyone chose a leaf hammock. Shortly after laying down he got up again and took the blaze core out of his inventory.
"Isn't that a bad idea? Blaze core and forest?" Ambigious asked.
Fire explained: "As long as it is sealed it won't burn anything, it gives off light though, a little bit of light could be good, it will become much darker than this. Nights here are very dark because there is no electrical lighting or cities nearby. Or hacker operated ore processing buildings."
With these words he put the core on a splitting branch where it started emitting light, not enough to see it from the outside of the tree but enough to illuminate the inside with a soft yellow and orange light.
"Isn't it available in different colors?" Ambigious asked jokingly.
Fire chuckled and asked: "Why?"
"Because freeZe" Ambigious nodded towards his sister "gets all romantic in this kind of light."
"No, I don't!" She replied angrily.
TehLulz, whispered to Unchosen: "And the old game starts again."
Unchosen replied: "I know right."
Fire asked Ambigious: "What exactly do you mean when you say romantic?"
freeZe answered instead of Ambigious, this time louder: "Come one guys, do you really have to do this now?"
"Yes." Ambigious answered and then explained: "Not exactly romantic, but… well, sentimental."
TehLulz, who was at the other side of the tree, asked: "And what exactly is so bad about that?"
"She will kick me off the tree when I say any more, sorry." Ambigious replied grinning.
"You can bet on that!" freeZe said, still a bit angry but you could hear, that she was thankful for Ambigious not saying more.
Unchosen and TehLulz were on the other side of the tree, which was a little away from the others.
"What is he talking about?" Unchosen wanted to know as he saw TehLulz grinning.
He whispered to Unchosen: "Fire and you are the only ones that he hasn't directly told, Ambigious had to tell me after he lost a bet, it is really no big thing but freeZe does not want anyone to know about it, no idea why."
"What is it?" Unchosen whispered back.
"You might have noticed some jokes about freeZe that Ambigious tells sometimes."
"What about them?"
"They have two main subjects, the first is freeZe being hard to get."
"I know what you mean."
"Yeah, and the other one is" he had to stop himself from laughing out loud and started to grin "freeZe having a crush on Fire. Fire never said anything about the jokes."
"I have noticed Ambigious telling them, he just told one before but now I understand."
"And about what Ambigious isn't allowed to tell… no, I won't tell you. Yet. You will find out eventually. Or not, it's not that big of a deal."
They were interrupted by Fire telling them to go to sleep: "Tomorrow will be a hard day, we will most likely have to fight our first monsters in that valley, better get some sleep." Everybody nodded and laid down.