Jack shook his head with a grin.

"Nah. I'm resistant to heat now. You still feel very warm, but it's not uncomfortable or painful any more. More toasty than anything." He said.

"Okay, good," she said, before pulling him in again.

Once he was thoroughly light headed and flush faced, he finally managed to find the will to separate himself. As if on cue, Urien called out in the distance from the front of the party.

"Jack! Rose! Are you two coming?"

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"We need to get going. Everyone is waiting on us." Jack said.

Rose nodded but said nothing. Her face was the brightest crimson he'd ever seen it, and she cleared her throat awkwardly before turning away and hurriedly gathering her things together. Once everything was a.s.sembled, stowed in their packs, and back on their backs, they set off to join the rest of the group.

As Jack rejoined the rest of the party, a slow wave of murmurs began to sweep through the a.s.sembled ma.s.s, and he saw more than one adventurer furtively point at him. He walked up to join the head of the group where Urien, Farlo, and Abigail were waiting. The three of them watched him approach. Urien and Abigail both seemed taken aback by the changes in his appearance. Farlo seemed amused, and gave him a knowing look.

As if to answer the question of Urien and Abigail's minds, Jack motioned himself and said "I got some upgrades. That's all. Everything else is exactly the same."

Urien appraised him pensively for a moment, then nodded.

"I understand. They suit you." He said. "Shall we get going? If we delay much longer we will give them an opportunity to regroup in force."

"I am ready whenever you are." Jack said.

Urien gave the order, and the collected ma.s.s began its march out of the destroyed gnoll camp and on towards the base of the mountain. Within a few minutes marching, they entered the thin band of forest that circled the mountain's base, and found themselves surrounded by chirping birds and sun-dappled forest floor. Under less pressing circ.u.mstances, Jack would have stopped and spent a few minutes enjoying the atmosphere. He glanced over at Rose, only to catch her staring at him. She smiled and blushed, before turning away. As they reached the far edge of the woods, the trees tapered out and shrank in size, eventually giving way to tumbled rock and scrub gra.s.s as the incline of the path grew steeper and more treacherous. In places, Jack found himself having to half walk half climb up parts of the path on all fours, and one occasion had a stone skid out from underneath his foot and nearly send him tumbling backwards through the air into the ma.s.s of bodies perched on the sloping path behind him.

After a few hundred feet of slow moving across a steep switchback, the slope leveled out a good amount, and remained relatively mild for what look like the rest of the way to the cliff face where he knew the cave opening was located. Ahead, in the distance, he could see faint moving shapes that he a.s.sumed were probably the stragglers from the camp either fleeing into the cave or forming some last line of defense to stop them before the party reached the main entrance.