Chapter 62: Chapter 61: A Climb

The fog turned out to be no great hinderance to Tess. She was worried it might mess with her tremorsense like the snow, but it actually enhanced it, at least compared to air. Since fog was mostly just…a lot of water droplets in the air, her tremorsense was able to see a bit further through it. Not as much as regular water, of course, but enough to be noticeable.

It seemed Ellie and Maven preferred the fog to the snow as well. Normal visibility was higher, and there was no snow to build up on their clothing. Furthermore, there was no wind pushing against them and making their climb harder.

That being said, the floor wasn’t all good news. It wasn’t actively snowing, but there was about a foot of snow on the ground, making movement much more difficult. And then, when you added that to the fact that the slope was only getting steeper, moving forward was about as hard as it had been before.

Or it would have been, were it not for Phoenix Fire. By turning its heat up, Tess was able to effectively melt any snow within ten feet of her and burn away some of the fog. She was fortunate that, by using Purifying Flames and Phoenix Fire together, she was able to effectively negate the heat of the flames for her allies and their possessions – otherwise the rope would have burnt away long ago. Perhaps the others’ equipment would have too, but Tess doubted it. Their equipment was enchanted to resist extreme temperature, after all.

But that was irrelevant to the situation. What was important was that they had an easy, dry hike up the slope. The melting and subsequent evaporation of the snow was still making a lot of noise and there was some steam that hindered vision, but the three of them had collectively decided it was worth it to potentially reveal themselves to monsters to make their trek faster and easier.

The monsters supposedly weren’t anything special without environmental factors making them dangerous, and Tess would be able to spot any monsters well before they would be an immediate threat to the trio. And the steam, while annoying, really was just an extension of the fog, so the visibility detriment wasn’t that bad either.

“This is really something.” Maven said, watching the snow melt in fascination. “I can tell how hot it is by how fast the snow is melting, but I can’t feel a thing, even through my clothes’ temperature monitor function. Not the cold, not heat, it’s just…nice.”

“Is that why I can tell it was supposed to be cold?” Ellie asked curiously. “I was wondering what that was.”

“Yeah, most stuff that grants resistance to extreme temperatures comes with some sort of a gauge that will let you know what it’s supposed to be like outside. Usually, if you’re outside, you can guess, but with places like dungeons, it can be really hard to tell, so it’s a handy feature.” Alice explained. “That being said, I have to agree with Maven here. I’m pretty sure temperature isn’t supposed to work like that.”

Tess shrugged. “Don’t look at me.” She said. “The Skill just says the heat of my flames doesn’t affect allies or our belongings. I don’t decide what’s what.”

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