A feminine figure stood in the middle of a flaming clearing, staring at a pile of burning logs in the center. The flames seemed to instinctively avoid her.

He's not here.

The snake isn't here. He slithered away after violating my sacred Name. I can see the remains of the bed, but not even one smoking human corpse.

It's not like I have no architectural talent and settled for a log cabin when I got lazy. I made it this way because of the artistic charm overflowing from unprocessed logs. No decision I make could ever be wrong, so clearly this house was the most beautiful house in the entire Netherworld.

And now he's burned down my beautiful house. The house that took my beautiful hands an entire 15 minutes to build.

The irreverence. The arrogance. The presumption. The unbridled hubris.

If he were a respectable demon instead of mere livestock, I would even respect his exemplary Demonic qualities. But I'll be damned if I let a snake do this to me.

Step one - I have to relieve my stress.  Again. Then come up with a plan.

Rest in peace, my lovely house. Go with pride. You served well.

I'll use the snake's bones as building material in your successor.

The figure had a trace of moisture in her eyes as she brought her hands together and began to chant quietly. A crimson orb of energy coalesced between her palms. The orb emitted a strong feeling of danger, despite its size.

She released the orb into the center of the burning logs. As soon as it stopped, the crimson orb rapidly started expanding.

Shit. Wait. The sword. I forgot to pick up the sword. He must still be inside.

Ahhh... Oh well, she thought, as the cabin was vaporized. He  was annoying anyway.

*****

I stepped forward for a couple seconds, and the trees immediately opened up. I thought it would be difficult to find water, but literally 30 feet from where I was standing lies a pool of sparkling crystal-clear water.

It's probably not that suspicious.

The pool does seem slightly  unnatural. No plants are growing near it, and the color is so clear it's like pool water. Maybe it's actually someone's pool? I shouldn't use someone else's pool, that's bad manners.

...I hope it's not poisonous. Too much chlorine is bad for the skin.

Since I don't have a sheath for this sword, I decide to begin by cutting up my charred shirt and wrapping it up. It'll be hard to carry if I have to worry about touching it all the time. I carefully hang the sword on my belt.

With what's left of my charred shirt, I carefully scoop up some water. I carefully bend down to try to smell it, but-

Suddenly, the world is dyed red as an unnaturally crimson mushroom cloud rises high over the jungle in the direction I came from. I can't help being slightly mesmerized.

It's like a lava lamp the size of a skyscraper.

Roughly ten seconds later, a solid wall of air whips through the trees and knocks me about 10 feet before I hit the ground hard. Needless to say, my shirt full of water slings it everywhere. About half of it hits me, and the other half soaks the bark of a nearby tree.

Stolen novel; please report.

In retrospect, maybe I should have gotten down before the shockwave hit me.

Well, the good news is, this water seems like it's not corrosive. I feel refreshed. It's cool on my skin. Indeed, simple pleasures are life's greatest reward.

Yep, that's plain water. Confirmed.

As my good mood returns, though, I hear a piercing scream. The pitch is the same as a baby's cry, but it's at least 10 decibels louder.

The scream seems to be coming from the tree that I splashed. Its bark is discolored and emitting a large volume of smoke.

Now that I'm actually looking, it's a fairly suspicious tree. Considering it actually has eyes. And uh.. arms? Not sure how I missed those before.

His arms are awfully large. Maybe he works out. Must be a bro.

"Uh... sorry bro. Please stop screaming, it was just an accident." I try reasoning with it. "With such... discerning eyes, I'm sure you saw that explosion."

Instead of calming down, though, the screaming gets louder, and it makes ominous creaking noises as it begins uprooting itself.

Before long, the screaming starts coming from all around me, adding in new voices in a harmony.

Well, shit. Looks like I'm surrounded by screaming tree bro and his screaming bros. This is no good.

Oh, but I can't assume they're all male just because they have no visible gender. That's sexist. Damnit Jonathan, get it together.

Wait, maybe I can reason with them. It's just a little screaming. It should be fine if I just carefully explain my intentions. Yeah, let's not lose heart. Everything will be fine if I just try a little harder. Even though tree bro is still smoking, and screaming, and his tree eyes look slightly bloodshot, he's probably mainly just excited to see someone with such chiseled abs. What a bro.

I wish he'd stop screaming though, it makes it really  hard to communicate.

I decide to start off by shaking hands, and put my hand out to shake with his bark hand. However, his coordination must be really poor, because he swipes at my head instead of going for my hand. Poor guy.

I won't misunderstand though, since he can't help having that body. Even so, I don't really want to take a tree fist to the face, so I lean out of the way like Dad taught me.

Unfortunately tree bro's balance is as poor as his coordination, because he falls down after missing me... straight into the pool.

Yikes. I didn't think he'd actually be able to scream louder. That's a lot of smoke.

Um... but the screaming stopped pretty quick. I'm sure he's just resting though. He'll be fine after a while.

I don't think the other bros are going to listen to reason though. Maybe if they have a while to cool off first, it will help. We'll be laughing about this incident soon.

I decide to jump into the water and wait it out. I'll come out when the screaming stops.

Ah... it's much more quiet underwater. How refreshing.