As Sung, Miguel, Jones, Rin and Yoko woke up one by one, they found themselves in a building made of stone, very mossy stone. The floor was overgrown with a carpet of damp moss, which Jones did not take well, as he walked precariously over the moss, slipped and fell into the moss, his face distorted with disgust.

  "I want a shower already..." Jones wailed.

  "Don't be such a crybaby lol." Rin teased him, before getting tripped by Yoko, and he too fell into the moss. "Eww, yeah I see what you mean now, this is disgusting."

  "Righty, stop messin' round before one of y'all hit your head the wrong way and die." Warned Miguel. They turned their attention to the table across the room. An out of place, pristinely wooden table, on it were nunchucks, baseball bats, brass knuckles, even daggers and all sorts of swords.

  "That is quite the collection..." Sung marvelled. "Though it kind of made me remember those BDSM scenes- nevermind." He forgot Jones was a child. Jones stared at him, puzzled.

  "Lemme get the nunchucks!" Rin eagerly snatched them off the table. "Do you even know how to use them?" Questioned Yoko. "Sure I can! Just watch." Rin flailed aroun a bit before hitting himself squarely in the forehead. An extra latch sprung from the end of the nunchuck, which flicked Rin right when it hit him.

  While Sung pondered at the table of melee weapons, the others quickly got what they wanted. Yoko got herself a few stacks of shuriken, which all have built in capacitors for a quick stun; Miguel got himself a long spear, which doubles as a trident; Jones got himself a couple of daggers, which blades can either heat themselves or cool themselves to extreme temperatures; Rin got himself crowbars, bog standard steel crowbars.

  "You done yet? We ain't got all day, our timer only starts when we get outta here!" Miguel impatiently asked. Sung randomly picked up a pair of brass knuckles before they went out of the building through the stairs at the opposite side of the room.

  They ascended up the stairs, the air only growing more frigid by the step. It did not help that both Rin and Jones got wet from the moss, both of them shivered intensely whenever the slightest gust of wind blew into them. By the time they climbed out of the exit, they were practically icicles.

  It's snowing outside. Inches of snow buried the withering grass underneath, and capped the towering pine trees surrounding the stone building. Looking back, Sung thought that the building resembled something of an ancient temple. Whichever religion it's built by, though, Sung just hoped their god can bring them some warmer clothes. They're still clad in the basic green t-shirt, blue shorts, and generic sneakers - not the best set for snowy terrain.

  Sung absentmindedly waved his hand, and a holographic menu popped up out of nowhere, which mildly startled him. On the menu were several options - "Fabricate", "Region Map", "Inventory", "Settings"... - as if it came straight from an RPG.

  Miguel watched Sung as he navigated through all the different menu options. "What're you signing?" Asked Miguel, to him Sung was just doing random hand gestures at nothing. "Do you not see this screen in front of me?" Sung replied, confused. Miguel shook his head. "Try waving your hand." A menu popped up just as Miguel did that, startling Miguel. "Like a video game!" Rin was almost brimming with excitement. "We should probably try and make something first, we're still in the freezing cold." Yoko scrolled through the fabrication recipes, a peculiar material stood out to her.

  "Nanites... and we need a few hundred of them for a simple jacket? How're we going to get that in the first place?" Yoko complained. A dialogue box popped up in front of her right when she finished her sentence. "Everything." It said, before disappearing as abruptly as it appeared. Confused, she took a fistful of snow from the ground, and reopened the fabrication menu. To her delight, a new entry popped up. "Water -> Nanite", and it seems like a fistful of snow is equivalent to... a singular unit of nanite. Disappointed, she threw it at Rin before picking up a pebble. Another entry popped up, "Stone -> Nanite". This time the pebble's equal to 10 nanites. "Seems like different objects have different conversion rates, then." Yoko yelled out to the rest of the group.

  Given the abundance of trees around them, and the relative lack of pebbles, snow and all, they came to the conclusion that it'd be best if they just felled a portion of this forest to build up a nice nanite stash, seeing how it's practically required for every recipe. "We don't even have a saw though?" Jones asked. "I think I saw a couple of saw chains on the table," Sung replied, "I'll go get them." He disappeared back down into the temple before reappearing with two chains. He gave one to Miguel, and the both of them went and started sawing some trees.

  Miguel quickly got winded though and gave the chains to Rin instead. "Guess the two days of exercise ain't for nuffin' after all!" Miguel bent down and panted. Even Sung's a bit surprised, though he shrugged and continued to fell trees. "The rest of us'll go do some exploring then, it seems like we'll be here for a while." Yoko suggested, which Sung nodded in agreement. "Just come back before the sun sets, if it does."

  As the sawing grew distant, the forest became blissfully silent, their trudging echoed throughout the woods indefinitely. The trio had no idea what they're supposed to be looking for, perhaps some wild animals for food? A white rabbit brushed past them, which Jones tried to chase, but it quickly disappeared into the snow. They couldn't catch any birds, either, and didn't even bother to try and hunt the larger animals, which they knew'd be impossible to kill by three pairs of inexperienced hands. All the chasing and catching though led them to a tiny wooden canopy, with a burning torch lit in the middle of a wall made of logs, and a strange hexagonal steel canister.

  The canister had glowing red lights, a telltale sign of it being locked. Curious, Jones approached it with gusto. The red lights immediately turned blue, some motors whirred, and the canister unscrewed its ends to reveal some sheets of paper, 3 syringes, and some cans. An info pop up revealed those papers to be blueprint shards, small jigsaw pieces of components to a larger full blueprint of an item.

  "No way they've got heroin jabs in here..." Miguel sighed. "These aren't heroin," Jones read off another info pop up, "these are apparently for healing minor injuries and numb small amounts of pain. They call it 'Noxiblock' here." "Oh so painkillers? That's going to be pretty useful then." Miguel stopped being skeptical of the syringes and took one into his own inventory, Yoko and Jones each took one into storage as well.

  With the can looted, the trio took the torch on the wall and moved on. They waddled their way deeper into the icy forest, with the snow now at ankle depth, their socks got soaked because of it. The trio were more than willing to call it quits, if not for the towering, deathly mesmerizing icy tree in the distance, bald because of the winter then clad in a coating of drippy ice, the compartively tiny icicles replaced the original leaves.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  In a sense, it is a symbol of life valiantly standing strong, perhaps somewhat alone, against the harshest of conditions. Yet who is to say that the icy shell isn't a cage, forcefully keeping the tree standing, even though it has long since wilted?

  The giant icy tree glistened under the sun, as if to tell everyone and everything under it that hope still persists in this world, as if to flaunt their life force, as if to ward off the unknown forces of evil.

  The torch proved to come in handy, as not long after did the sun start to rapidly set. The sky glowed a brilliant orange before the moon and the stars took over, the frosty land now basked in the ethereal fog of moonlight, rendering the forest with an extra layer of sinisterness.

  Trailing their footsteps in the snow, and with the giant tree as their compass, the trio tried their best to get back to the camp, before Sung and Rin starts worrying about them. The silence of the forest turned from being soothing to offputting, the woods went from calming to menacing. Jones could not help but hide behind Miguel, while Yoko's knees tried their absolute best to not give out. The first night, as it turns out, is often frightening. They glanced at the tree again for directions, perhaps to get a sense of reassurance from it as well.

  Refractions of the moonlight encased the giant icy tree with a ghastly white glow, by contrast with its pompous, dazzling self in the morning, it now feels truly like it's well past its prime, as if it's biding its time, waiting for the icy shackles to melt away, by then it shall have its deathly release.

  Either way, either dazzling or mysterious, it is still majestic, ever the more mesmerizing.

  Putting the glorious tree aside, the trio turned their attention instead to some faint clashing sounds from afar. Groups are nearby, they collectively thought to themselves. It would be foolhardy to stay while clear signs of aggression are nearby, but then again, their job is to collect information and explore, what kind of intel gatherers would they be if they give up on an obvious chance to see for themselves the abilities of other groups?

  They pulled their weapons out from their inventories, just in case they had to get into combat themselves. With Miguel in the lead, the three of them slowly crept their way behind a bush, right outside a small circular bald patch, where two groups were violently clashing against each other, fist against fist, sword against sword.

  On one side of the patch, a swordsman lunged forward with their red katana, which another brawler narrowly dodged, and too dived in to try and land a punch square in the swordsman's face, which the swordsman blocked with their hilt. Flurries of attacks were made by the duo, each haphazardly blocked by the opponent, neither really gaining much of an upper hand.

  On the other side of the patch, a rogue-like tried their hardest to keep their distance against a lancer, yet the lance kept finding its way near them no matter how much they've retreated back. It's a miracle that none of the thrusts've hit them yet, possibly because the lancer too is just an amateur.

  It didn't seem like both teams were entirely there. The lancer eventually impaled the rouge-like in the chest, killing them immediately, before joining the brawler in defeating the swordsman.

  The commotion died down, as the lancer and the brawler put their weapons back into their inventories and prepared to leave. "Well, there's nothing much left to see, I guess?" Miguel whispered, Jones and Yoko nodded in return. It's well past nighttime already, Sung and Rin must be worried sick. "We're coming back. Big scoop." Jones messaged Sung in the group chat before turning around to leave.

  Crack! Dread flooded the trio, as they slowly turned their heads to the source of the loud crack, beneath Miguel's feet was a snapped twig. Despite their best efforts, as they raise their heads again to see two pairs of glaring eyes and crackling knuckles, it seems like they've been found out at the very end.

  Yoko quickly fled, leaving Miguel and Jones behind. Before Miguel could turn around and complain though, from the corner of his eye, hr barely noticed a lance charging his way. Out of pure instinct, he swiftly blocked the lance with his own spear, the tip of the lance just barely deflected from his gut, Miguel broke out a cold sweat, that was close.

  While not trained for combat, Miguel fortunately had enough run-ins with drunken men during his janitor days to pick up a thing or two about defending himself with a stick. The lancer randomly poked and prodded, each strike deflected within a hair's breadth. Miguel smirked, his opponent seems to be inexperienced.

  Forgoing the usual spearholding technique he copied off of fighting games, he instead held it as if it's his usual mop, parrying the lancer's amateurish attacks with his own set of slightly less inexperienced moves, slowly pushing the lancer back. With each step, Miguel could feel the trembling of the lance grow more intense, but he can't afford to be confident just yet. The thrusts may not be accurate, but Miguel wasn't willing to stay around and find out if the lance hurts or not when it eventually does hit him.

  With a twist of the spear's handlebar, the blade split into 3 spikes - a trident. Miguel used the trident to fork the lance to the ground, which caused the lancer to lose their balance and stumble forwards. Miguel took advantage, and landed a clean right jab right at their head, rendering them unconscious.

  Jones meanwhile had a hard time stopping the brawler, bruises and cuts now scattered and stamped all over his body. Daggers, as it turned out, were not suitable for blocking punches. With a swift uppercut, Jones was thrown off balance, tripped himself up, and fell onto the damp snowy grass. Back against a tree, Jones nearly pissed his pants in fear

  With a smirk on their face, the brawler cracked their knuckles again, as they winded up their fists in preparation of dealing the final blow. "Any last words, lil' punk?" growled the brawler. Just as they held their fist up high, ready to pound it down hard onto Jones, a sudden projectile flew through the woods, hit and paralyzed the brawler with electric currents.

  A few more finally rendered them unconcious, as they instead crashed onto Jones. Jones frantically looked around, expecting to see a third party hidden somewhere waiting to vulture from their fight, just to see Yoko hid behind some thicker bushes some couple yards away from the confrontation.

  After a deep guttural grunt and much effort, Jones managed to flip the unconscious brawler off him and sit upright - just for the electrocuting shurikens to touch the damp floor and send a small shock to Jones, sending him back to the snow, now dyed golden yellow.

  Miguel pulled the trident off from the ground, turned it back into a spear, and stabbed the lancer right in the throat, killing them instantly. Still gasping for breath, he hobbled over and did the same to the brawler, much to Jones' disgust when blood spilled all over the ground and stained the snow crimson red. They had killed two people. They will be revived, but they were killed nonetheless.

  Miguel fell back onto the ground, while Yoko returned from the bushes. The collective realization that they've just slain people hit harder than either of their opponents could, a line was just crossed. "You okay, Jones?" Miguel tried to console him. He's just a kid, after all.

  Jones simply nodded. His eyes still fixated on the two corpses laid in front of him, daggers left buried in the snow. Dazed, he could not help but imagine the pain of getting his throat brutally slit.

  "And you, missy?" Miguel turned to Yoko. She did not respond, yet she too seems to be holding back tears, as if in her mind she's trying to convince herself. "It's okay, I've only paralyzed them, I did nothing else. I'm not a bad person." was what seemed to be running in a loop in her head. She held forth her hand and converted the two corpses into considerable amounts of nanites.

  Miguel could see they were very much shaken, "It's what we gotta do here... We's in a battlefield here... It's killed or be killed." The trio fell silent. What's left on the field are stains of red and yellow, and some leftover weapons.

  "Wh- what about the weapons?" Asked Jones shakily, "th- they might have sp- special powers, d- d- don't they?" Miguel picked up the lance and took a hard look. "...No, they seem to just be normal weapons." He instructed Yoko to convert them into nanites as well, they got blueprint shards for the lance in the process.

  "Right, let's actually head back this time." Miguel straightened himself up. Still traumatized from the action, the three begrudgingly made their way through the thick forest back to the camp, where Sung and Rin had already set up tents and a campfire, lazily roasting some skewered fish.