It's easy to admire the natural world, but it's important to remember this: The natural world doesn't give a crap about you. The natural world is constantly dying and being remade by itself, and it's more than willing to turn your life into fuel for the next creation, especially if you piss nature off. In summary, it is unwise to mess with nature, unless you're prepared for nature to screw with you right back.

Despite that, here we are, well on our way to screw with nature.

We stepped through the holes and instantly made our way to the forest. It might have been wise to put us deeper into the forest proper, where the wintermore trees are most commonly found, but then we'd miss the possibility of some easy trees near the edge, where it's safer. I'd wager that the deeper into the woods you go, the more dangerous everything gets. 

Unfortunately, we were unable to find any of the wintermore trees near the edge of the woods, so our only option was to head deeper. We'd had seen these kinds of trees before, so we know that they are here, somewhere, but it's difficult to remember where they were, specifically.

"Hey, S." I say as we walk, recalling something peculiar.

"Yeah?" 

"Why did this job have varying difficulty?"

"Oh, y'know, there's the danger of getting attacked." From the tone of his voice and the look on his face, I could tell this wasn't the complete truth. That, perhaps, he was withholding certain information. 

"By what?"

"Oh, y'know, the forest and such." He said, his eyes darting upward.

Bingo. "Oh yeah, that makes sense." Then, a pause, for dramatic effect. "Except, there's just one thing I find peculiar. See, the wolf job didn't have any transparent skulls, and that's in the same environment, right? So, you'd think they'd have the same variation, right? So gee, I wonder what makes this one special?" I couldn't help making a cheeky grin as I said this.

S let out a defeated sigh. "Crap, I was hoping you wouldn't catch that. Well, no use hiding it now. See, the thing that makes this job special is that the wintermore trees, despite seeming eternally dead, are occasionally alive. Like, when we try to harvest the bark, they'll animate and attack us."

"And you thought it best to keep that information to yourself?" I asked, a little irritated.

"I thought it'd be funny seeing you get all surprised! Plus, since I'll be collecting the bark, I'll be the first one getting hit, anyways."

I can't help but chuckle at his scheme. "Bastard."

"Fair enough." He, too, chuckles for a bit.

 Actually, on the topic of dangerous things, it's probably a good idea to do that thing, just in case. 

I reach out both on my arms, and cast my weird tentacle noodle thing. I let them hang floppily for now, so they don't slam into things. Man, magic is weird. 

"Right, that's a good idea" S says, creating his blade. Good, now we're in less danger if we get ambushed by something. Not no danger, just less danger. 

As we continue walking deeper and deeper into the forest, I can't help but jump at shadows. Anytime I hear, like, a twig snapping or bushes rustling I get spooked and make a shield with my noodle thingies, much to the amusement of S, who chuckled every time.

Eventually, after much walking and getting spooked, S does spot one of the wintermore trees. I notice there's actually another one pretty close. Neat.

"There's one" S says, in a whisper, pointing to the tree.

"Alright. What are the odds this thing attacks, again?" I ask, also whispering. Wait, why are we even whispering? Eh, who cares. 

"Around 45%, I think." Not exactly comforting, but, hey, that's less than half.

"Alright. You move in, get the stuff, I'll keep close and get ready to warp us out if things go south."

"Got it. Going in." He crouches, and stealthily makes his way to the tree. For some reason.

He then went to cut some bark off the tree, then...

I had a terrible feeling. Y'know, I usually find it wise to add about 40% probability when considering the possibility of a negative outcome, like when it's a 20% to rain the day you're planning a trip, it's best to make that 60%. I didn't think about this earlier, 'cus I didn't want to jinx it, but, in the end, it doesn't seem like that's gonna m-

*achoo*!

Oh, I just had to sneeze. That's what that feeling was. Yeah, looks like the trees still fine, and S is carving away with relative ease. We're good, no cause for alarm.

"Bless you." S said, still carving away. Huh, they do that in this world, too. 

"Thanks." I respond. Everything is nice for a few moments. Until we heard a loud crash, followed immediately by the nearby wintermore tree animating, and swinging one of its branches with intent to slam into me. Neat.

See, I hadn't noticed this initially, because I was thinking about cultural similarities between my previous world and this one, but apparently, my sneeze had startled some deer, and that deer ran into a tree, and that tree happened to be the wintermore tree right next to us, and that tree happened to be one of the living ones. The deer quickly ran away, and tree creature happened to look at me with it's weird tree face, noticed me first, and began its assault. 

That's 

C'mon. That's just stupid. 

In my mixture of fear and unamused bewilderment, I am unable to create the holes to get out in time. Maybe I should have have created them earlier, and just brought them with us. Well, no use thinking about that now.

"Beyes!" S shouts, bringing me back to reality. 

Right, getting attacked. Crap, I need to get out of here! 

I throw up my left noodle thingies, shielding that part of me. I had expected to just absorb the blow and move on, but I found myself flying backwards through the forest at incredibly high speeds, like a character in a comic book. As I fly away, I briefly see S's incredibly confused face. This is weird.

Crap! I'm probably gonna fly directly into a tree or something! I quickly throw up my right noodle thingies behind me, and, almost immediately, they make contact, and I suddenly bounce back towards S and the tree creature.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" I couldn't help but scream. I always had trouble with roller coasters. That being said, I never screamed on one of those, just suffered in silence. This was no roller coaster. This was flying towards a hostile force of nature at incredible speed. This was truly harrowing.

Fortunately, since I could see where I was flying, this time, I quickly made a hole in front of me, and one in a safer place, and I flew through it. Maintaining my velocity, I keep flying through the plains for a bit. 

I touch the ground with my noodle things, in an attempt to gain some friction, and eventually I do slow, and fall on the ground.

As much as I'd love to think about what just happened, S is still in the forest, so I gotta get him out, naturally. 

I create holes in front of me and where I just was, in the forest, and I look through. Of course, S is already fighting the tree. He's making quick stabs at it while avoiding it's relatively slow attacks. Ultimately, neither of them seem to be making any progress against the other.

"S! Over here!" I call out to him from the hole.

He looks a little reluctant to run from the fight, but I think even he realized this fight was pointless, we got what we came for, so he sprinted towards the hole. Unfortunately, his back was vulnerable, and the tree took this opportunity to slam a branch down on him. 

"S! Ab-" Before I can even finish my sentence, S dodges to the left the instant the tree seemed committed to the attack, and elegantly avoided getting hurt. An excellent maneuver from an experienced combatant, for sure. He quickly jumped through the hole, and fell into the plains, where I was. I closed the hole. S, a little short of breath, shot me a thumbs up sign. I returned it, and we silently celebrated a job well done, and that was the end of it.

Wait, no it wasn't. What the heck was that earlier?

S seemed to be thinking the same thing I was. "Wait, what was that earlier, with the flying? That a new move or something?" he asked.

"Well, in truth, I have no idea, either." I confess. "Maybe it was something the tree did?"

"I haven't heard about anything like that... I guess it's not impossible, but..." 

"Maybe it's a special one thing? Like, with the rabbits from earlier?"

"I doubt it. I've never heard of anything like that happening to a creature like this, at least." Yeah, I didn't think so either.

"Then... was it my magic?"

"Probably. Can't imagine any other possibility."

"Huh... magic's weird, man."