It took the better part of an hour to make it out of the woods after they set off, with the trailing up and down several more sets of hills and ravines, and across a pair of small streams. By the time they reached the forest's edge, it was nearly sundown, and the trees were teeming with life as the day creatures began to wind down, and the creatures of the night began to awaken and begin their evening of living.

The trio led him to a small farm adjacent to another stream, this one a bit larger than the others, with a wooden clapboard farmhouse, a small barn, and a mill with a water wheel lazily dipping and spinning in the stream's flow. Rose led the group up to the door of the farmhouse, and gently rapped her knuckles against a small metal plate nailed to the door's face. It took a second for Jack to realize this was probably to keep the girls from burning a hole into the door's surface.

"Awright, awright, 'old on jest a mowment..." An older man's voice called out from inside the house. Several heavy thudding footsteps approached the door, and with the sliding sound of a wooden bar being removed, and the clack of a metal doorlatch, the heavy wooden house door creaked open to reveal a very large, hunched old man with ruddy brown skin and wild white hair matched in wildness by equally wild eyebrows and an equally wild white beard. He beamed when he saw the four of them standing on his doorstep.

"Oh good, garls! You found 'em! Well dun!" He said, stepping out of the doorway to allow the four of them in.

The four of them entered a house that Jack immediately saw was covered on nearly every surface by non-flammable or otherwise heat resistant materials. The floor was made of smooth river stones held together by some form of cement, and the walls, while wooden on the outside were lined on the inside by a combination of metal plates, stone, plaster, and mud all mixed haphazardly together in no real semblance of order. The table appeared to be carved out of a solid piece of rock, and the chairs were all either stone or metal.

As soon as he stepped inside, Jack gasped for air. The heat inside was absolutely unbearable. It was easily well over a hundred degrees inside, and he could feel his s.h.i.+rt and boxers immediately stick to his skin and begin to soak through with sweat.

The large man shut the heavy door behind them, and extended his hand out to Jack with a broad, toothy grin.

"Welcome t'our 'umble abode! I'm Simon!"

"I'm Jack. Nice to meet you, Simon!" He said, taking the man's hand.

When the searing heat reached his brain, he howled and jerked his hand away, hopping around and hurling obscenities.

Twice in one day. He really honestly should have known better.

He couldn't help but get the creeping sensation Frumpkin was laughing his a.s.s off at him.