Being unconscious, while not enjoyable, was a pretty convenient way to travel. I passed out in that hot stuffy cave and woke up again on the top floor of the hatchery, mask off and costume stripped away so they could treat my wounds. I looked down at my leg, which while wrapped mostly seemed to be healing pretty quickly. I imagine Jessie had given me what she could and hadn't had enough to knit my wounds together completely.

I looked around for my clothes, feeling sort of naked without my H ranked combat gear. Sure they weren't as good now as they were when I got them, and I imagine they were slightly holding me back at this point, but at the same time I'd grown so used to them I couldn't imagine going without. My costume was my second skin, it was with me everywhere I went. Almost since I first became an Ascendant I'd been wearing it constantly, and being here without it made me feel all kinds of vulnerable and exposed.

I tried to sit up and winced. My whole body hurt, but the wince made my face move, which was an agony on a whole different level than the slight soreness in my muscles. I couldn't tell if my nose was still broken, but it certainly didn't feel great. "Hey!" Callie's voice cracked the air and she was next to me in seconds. "Lay back down you absolute moron. You got hurt really bad, you need to rest." I blinked and looked at her, and seeing her anxious expression I sighed and leaned back to lay on the ground.

I groaned. "Did anyone get the number of that bus that hit me? Because ow." I closed my eyes, and it felt nice to let myself relax and shut out the light. i hadn't realized but it wasn't helping the headache. "Also when did we get back? And is everyone else ok? I got dragged off there at the end. i didn't see what happened to the others. I take it they aren't hurt or anything?"

Callie gave a hysterical laugh. "You got your face stomped into hamburger meat by a deranged biker and you're asking if everyone else is hurt? No Shane, no one else got hurt." She sounded on the verge of crying. "What the hell is wrong with you? I saw what you did as I was grabbing the Heart, but I couldn't make it back in time. Who grabs a more powerful Ascendant around the leg and hangs on like that. He could have killed you. If he'd kept kicking I think he actually might have."

I opened my eyes again to see hers overflowing with tears. I felt like an asshole, though I wasn't entirely sure WHY. Still, I wouldn't apologize for keeping her safe. I just gave hear my best reassuring smile, which admittedly probably lost some of the effect given my split and bleeding face (I definitely felt some wounds reopen when I stretched my mouth) and reached out for her hand. "Hey, I'm fine. I knew you were out there and he was heading for the Heart. I needed to make a call about what to do, and I sort of panicked and did the first thing I could think of."

She swallowed hard and threw herself into my arms, giving me a tight squeeze that kind of hurt, but I wasn't complaining. Even with my Perception I barely heard her as she murmured into my shoulder. "You moron. Who cares if we win this stupid hunt if you die. I love you but you're an idiot." She held me close for a second before her body went stiff, clearly realizing what she'd just said. She jerked back, clearing her throat. "I mean, right, we won, the others are fine, we're waiting for the call to head back. How are you feeling?"

I decided to leave her slip alone, she would talk about it when she was ready. I joined her in pushing on. "I'm fine. Not particularly happy to be awake right now, but with my Vitality I'm sure it won't last too long. If Jessie is ok she can probably top me up once she's back to full charge. What did I miss? Last I saw the hunt was ending and we were trapped in a cavern with a quartet of pissed off G rankers."

That got a wet chuckle as she helped me sit up. "Well, you probably saw the important parts. After we finished they halted the hunt. But we found out the announcement wasn't across the whole event, just for the teams that had completed their lists. It was us and about four others from what Jessie has been able to find out with the ravens. The other teams are still actively searching for their list items. We haven't gotten any responses but we're pretty sure this is normal. Letting the other teams finish and then cutting in some of the more interesting footage before the big footage so they can get some more air time."

I listened to her explanation, nodding along. "Well, as long as we're out of it I have nothing else to say. If you think about it that makes sense. If they stopped it now they would miss out on some decent fights. Are we still vulnerable to attack here?" I hoped not, I just wanted to slump down and sleep off this pain. I was pretty sure Zeke wouldn't intervene against Ascendants unless they tried to hurt Cass directly since it would be violating the parameters of our deal.

She shook her head. "Nope. Apparently the overlap items that can't be found elsewhere have faded from other lists. We were told we're protected now, though they didn't bother mentioning how. Celine is pretty sure they're using the beacons to warn people off attacking the teams who have completed the hunt. This isn't the earliest it's ever ended by a long shot, but it's not a bad result. They're giving the other teams a few days to try to get some good footage and then they'll run the stream and do a mass pickup. The rest of them will get picked up at the end of the month."

We sat there like that for a while, me leaning against her for stability, until I finally felt a bit better, and she helped me to my feet to check in on the others. Everyone was out front of the hatchery, the only exception being Jessie, who was still sleeping off the energy drain. She'd wanted to stay up and try to heal me more, but once it was clear that I was safe and out of immediate danger Callie forced her to sleep. My Vitality could patch me up until she woke up and was feeling better.

I was glad Callie hadn't let her run herself into the ground, I'd have made the same call. When we stepped out everyone's eyes snapped to us. Celine was sitting with Benny while Martin and Sarah reclined against a tree and Cass ran around the clearing watched by Cark and Zeke. When they saw us though everyone got to their feet, with Benny being the first to cross the distance and pull me into a hug. "Shane! Revenant, man, you were looking messed up there for a minute. That Fisher guy didn't hold back."

He sounded angry, but I just patted his back with a chuckle. "Nope, but he didn't go as hard as he could have either. I have no doubt he had the leg strength to break my neck in one kick if he was really trying to end me. I'll take living and beat up over dead and barely injured any day. I was just worried about the rest of you. I'm glad everyone is ok. Where are the wolves, I don't see them?"

Benny snickered, pointing to the edge of the creek off to the side of the clearing. It was a decent distance away, but I could easily make out the massive furry shapes slumped wet and bedraggled on the beach. "Cass decided the wolves should go swimming with her. I have no clue how she talked them all into it honestly, but they were not happy to be soaked. They're drying off now. Everyone else is fine too. Hell, Cark is actually pretty excited."

The big man shrugged at my questioning gaze. "Honestly I wasn't expecting any benefits from this other than finding my sister when I agreed. Now that you guys won though, I'm going to show up in your battle footage and will get some of the same promotion as all of you. Granted they won't be pushing the narrative for me the same way, but since I'll be there I'm probably going to see a big bump in my stats just like all of you." He smiled ruefully. "I stayed to pay you back and ended up getting an even bigger favor. I really have no idea how I'm supposed to repay you for all this."

That got another eye roll from me. "If you keep talking about favors and debts I'm going to think you don't like us. I told you, you're a friend, there's no need to keep score. Any of us might have ended up dead without you here. I can't think of a way to repay you for that either, the lives of my friends are priceless. Since we both owe each other more than can be reasonably paid back why don't we just call ourselves even and move forward as friends."

Cark had put himself in harms way time and again for all of us, and I absolutely wouldn't hear about any of this payback bullshit. I considered him part of our group, even if only for the hunt, and I was going to treat him that way. If he benefited from working with us then all the better. He gave me a grateful smile and clapped me on the shoulder. "Well if you put it that way how can I refuse? Come on, come sit down. We were just talking to Celine about how this whole thing is going to work."

Callie helped me over to sit by a tree and we looked over to where Celine was sitting. Benny had rejoined her, and though they weren't exactly cuddling, the two of them were sitting pretty close together. I smiled at my friend, who avoided my gaze but couldn't help the satisfied smile on his face. The elf girl waited until everyone was settled and nodded. "As you know great deeds trigger stat growth. The accumulation of renown bursts out at these milestones and allows us to upgrade our strength."

We all nodded, this was something we had experienced multiple times ourselves. "As usual, the milestones tend to be fit into certain categories, triggering based on a specific event or series of events. Due to studying these sorts of milestones for quite some time, the major forces have developed methods of setting up their events to count as singular milestones over longer periods of time. This is why we haven't seen a slow trickle of points during this hunt, and are going to see large returns all at once in the end."

We'd heard this already, but I hadn't realized it was an intentional thing that they had done this way. I wondered how long they had studied the way renown worked before being able to set up events like this. Either way I was looking forward to the windfall. Celine went on to explain the payout, the timing that we could expect, and what kind of stat numbers we might be looking at (though she admitted that was mostly guesswork) and by the time she was done I couldn't help but be excited for the upcoming boost in power. Once the promotion began we would all get hit with the points at once, and I couldn't wait to see how strong all this had made us.