Romania: Paying attention in class sure came in handy, huh?

When Loki's eyes opened, all his friends, Nishan and Saltavore were all sprawled out on the ground. As Loki sat up, blinking from the sunlight, he noticed that they were in a jungle, and were surrounded by plants. In the distance, Loki could hear the sounds of various beasts.

"Ugh," Saltavore sat up, rubbing his head. "Where are we? What happened?"

Slowly, all of them came to. It took awhile before they remembered what had happened.

"That son of a- I'm going to kill him and our parents when we get back!" Nishan shot up, only to fall back down, wincing as he rubbed head.

"At least you know your parents don't love you anymore than mine do, huh?" Daphne quipped.

"Oh, stop being a smartass," Saltavore retorted. "It's not like yours are any better. At least our parents made us look like heroes in the cover story."

"Well, mine-"

"Okay, shut it you three," Terrence snapped. "You guys can continue your sibling rivalry once we're on Earth again. Now, first things first, does anyone know where are we?"

"Mr. Joshua said something about Romania?" Seraphine wondered.

"Oh right!" Loki perked up. "I remember Mr. Finley going through it in a Beast-ology class once. Romania is a world that has caves full of mana crystals, and the beasts here all drop good quality magical cores. However, it's an extremely dangerous world, because the beasts are pretty high-ranked, and the caves are usually not to far from volcanoes, or pretty deep underground, or hidden behind steep waterfalls. It has deep jungles, and while the jungles have useful plants in them, it's also filled with poisonous ones. It's also hard to use Abilities in this world because the atmosphere temporarily cuts down an Abilities users Ability to 50%. And time passes differently in other worlds, so it could be one hour here and one day on Earth, or a month here and one minute on Earth."

"Great," Terrence groaned. "Just great. A world that's time is unpredictable, full of dangerous beasts and poisonous plants and volcanoes and who-knows-what."

"Well," Nishan thought out loud. "You said that this world as quite a lot of mana crystals, right? If we find a cave with them, we can mine out the mana crystals ourselves. Me and Saltavore's swords are strength-types, which means it'll be more effective in mining the mana crystals then Daphne's sword, which is a fight-type."

"Hey, look at that," Daphne chuckled. "Looks like you actually have some brains after all!"

"You-"

"Hey guys," Loki cut in. "What type is a sword made out of Ashel Silver?"

Saltavore frowned. "Well, Ashel Silver is an extremely light but strong metal, so it's both fighting and strength-type. What's the point though? It's not like you have one, or that you brought it."

Loki sighed. "You'll understand one day."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Come on guys," Daphne motioned to them. "Let's follow the stream, so that there's always water close by. It's flowing down, so if we follow it upstream, it as to lead somewhere, right?"

"Yeah," Saltavore grumbled. "It could lead us somewhere where we don't want to go."

"Well, do you have a better idea?"

"... Fine." They all trudged along the stream with Daphne.

After awhile, Seraphine complained, "I'm so thirsty! Can't we drink some of the stream water?"

"I mean, if you want to take the risk and become sick, go ahead," Nishan grumbled.

"Hold up," Loki Inspected the water.

[Name: Water]

[The water is clean and pure]

"It's safe to drink," Loki announced.

"Oh, thank god," Seraphine knelt next to the stream and cupped the water in her hands, drinking thirstily.

"How do you know that?" Saltavore asked in surprise.

"It's part of my secret. You don't have to know."

"We damn well do need to know," Nishan growled. "We need to know what this weird Ability it is that you have."

"We have bigger problems right now," Terrence looked up at the setting sun. "Looks like we have to settle somewhere."

"Here?" Saltavore looked scandalized. "In the woods?!"

"What else, Your Royal Highness?" Daphne drawled sarcastically. "Did you expect a mansion to pop out of nowhere for you to stay for the night? And maybe mana crystals would be conveniently nearby as well?"

"Well, no," Nishan started. "But I just didn't expect to sleep on the ground." He wrinkled his nose in distaste. "And what we are going to eat? Plants?"

"If worse comes to worse," Loki said seriously. "We probably will. But we can try hunting first."

"Hunting?" Saltavore repeated. "And eat beast meat? No thank you."

"It's not a choice, pretty boy," Terrence rolled his eye. "If you want to eat plants that could be poisonous or starve, that's your choice."

Loki heard some noise. "Shh. I hear something."

All of them were silent as they heard some sounds, and a beast that looked like an ox, only twice as big, appeared in the clearing.

"A musk ox," Seraphine whispered. "They aren't usually aggressive, but they're still wild animals, and can be quite dangerous, especially if provoked."

"Did all of you nerds do research?" Saltavore whispered.

"Less talking, more hunting," Terrence answered.

Daphne motioned for them to gather around. "Okay, so here's the plan...."