Chapter 13

Jack quickly darted around the edge of the lake and stopped just at the well lit entrance to the fifth level. He turned around to see if was still being pursued, he was, he also saw a cloud of multicoloured light rising from where he’d last seen Barry lying. Without any further hesitation he plunged through the gate and down the narrow stone stairs and out onto the fifth floor.

It was the same as he remembered it, a large cave-like level with large stone natural looking columns rising from the ground to the ceiling. The entire floor was illuminated by dungeon fireflies.

He quickly ran over between the stone columns deeper into the cave before picking one of the columns to hide behind. Once Jack felt he was hidden he leaned back against the stone surface and let out a deep breath, he slid down to the floor.

He’d just killed someone. Not something, someone. Granted it was Barry but he had still been a human being, a person. Now Barry was dead, killed by Jack. He didn’t know how to feel about it. Guilty that he’d killed someone? Relieved that he was still alive? He'd just been defending himself hadn’t he? Or was there something he should have done to avoid this outcome. He didn’t even know if he’d meant to do what he did, did he mean to punch Barry in the head with a lightning infused fist or was he just reacting by instinct?

Feelings of guilt, anger, anxiety, fear, confusion and relief all mixed chaotically inside his head until frustration overcame it all and he banged the back of his head against the stone column a couple of times. That seemed to clear his head up a little, now wasn’t the time to have a crisis of conscience. He was still in trouble, Barry’s former henchmen had all followed after him and he didn’t think he’d like what would happen if they caught up with him.

He needed to think carefully, assess his position and come up with a plan for getting out of this. He thought for a second before he heard the sound of multiple pairs of boots hitting the stone floor, Jack shrank back behind his column, making certain he couldn’t be seen.

“Where is he?” One goon called out gruffly.

“Can’t see him!”

“What are we gonna do?”

“We’ll kill the little bastard, obviously,” another goon said scornfully.

“No! We still need him alive!” Another said, Jack was peeking around the column he was hiding behind. The one who had just spoken was the goon who’d been Jack’s minder, the one who kept control of Jack and escorted him to the fourth level. Jack still didn’t know what his element was.

“What!? Why? Don’t tell me we’re still doing this stupid blue flower thing!?” one of the goons asked incredulously.

“Of course not fuckwit! I wouldn’t mind killing the little sparker, but Barry’s dad is gonna want a piece of him. And right now that's the only way any of us are gonna survive this, if we give the sparker to Eric Flamewrought he’ll let us live, probably,” the goon added on.

“Oh shit! I forgot about Barry’s dad!” one of them said fearfully.

“Why would Flamewrought come after us? I mean, hunters die all the time, we can easily say it wasn’t our fault, he can’t blame us,” another goon naively stated.

“He can blame us and he will, trust me, I work for the guy, we need the sparker. If we just go up to the guy and say ‘sorry Mr Flamewrought, your sons dead and we let the guy that killed him walk away’, Flamewrought will incinerate us. There won’t even be enough left of us to fill a jam jar,” the unknown element goon spoke up, trying to convince his cronies.

“You worked for him?”

“Yeah, why do you think a B ranker like me would be hanging around you guys, a bunch of D’s and E’s huh?” he asked somewhat scornfully. “His daddy hired me to protect Barry and accompany him on dungeon delves. Now everyone shut the fuck up, spread out and search for that fucking sparker!”

As Jack watched all the goons submissively did as they were told and spread out. Though Jack did overhear one of the goons resentfully mutter.

“Sounds like you’ll be the one in trouble, not us.”

Jack ducked behind his cover again and frantically tried to think what he should do, he was outnumbered, he had no weapons, he was bare footed, he was tired and he suddenly realised, he was wounded.

He was covered in cuts and scratches all over his body, once again his shirt and trousers were ruined messes. Some of the cuts were fairly deep and were still bleeding. Although in a dungeon blood looks a little odd, he noticed as some fresh blood leaked out a cut on his shoulder, it started out as red, but then after a few seconds it turned almost oily looking before it seemed to transform into multicoloured steam and rise from his body before dissipating. The dungeon was hungry, it couldn’t even wait for him to die before feeding off him.

The ground where he stood and the stone column also had several small patches where his blood had leaked onto the surfaces, faint wisps of multicoloured vapour emanated from the spots.

Jack turned his attention from the morbid display and tried to spot where the goons had gone, he saw a couple but not all. He noticed that the B ranker goon was still by the entrance to the level, Jack didn’t fancy his chances of getting past him. He decided to try and get further into the cave. If he could get a hold of one of the goons by themselves then maybe he stood a chance.

He checked to see if the coast was clear and began sneaking past the various stone columns, he heard whispering up ahead and saw two goons together a few metres away, searching for him. No good he thought, two was too many, he backed off quietly in search for easier prey. However, his quiet withdrawal was immediately ruined by the appearance of a dungeon goblin that had apparently been stalking him.

The goblin let out a shrill yell and raised a long black dagger before attacking with it. Jack managed to deal with it easily but the commotion had inevitably drawn the attention of the two goons, they looked over and spotted him.

“There he is! He’s here! The sparker is over here!” he screamed out.

Voices echoed throughout the cavern, most in confusion asking where exactly ‘here’ was, one of the goons levelled a shotgun at him and the other flung a fireball at him. Jack ducked behind a nearby pillar as the shotgun blast chipped away some of the stone and the fireball charred the ground where he’d just been standing.

“Hey!” Jack called out indignantly. “I thought you were supposed to take me alive!”

“Uh…” One of the goons intelligently replied.

“How about this, I come out and surrender, and you don’t immediately kill me. Does that sound good?” Jack tried to be as convincing as possible, knowing he probably wasn’t dealing with a couple of Einsteins here.

“Er…yeah…yeah! Come out with your hands up sparker! No sudden moves!” he shouted back at Jack, gaining more confidence.

“And no funny business?” Jack asked with a slight smile, walking with his hands up in surrender, getting closer and closer to the two goons. He began pouring a faint trickle of lightning into his body.

“Er right…right, no funny business,” the goon stammered and pointed his shotgun directly at Jack's chest, Jack was almost within reach.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Jack's smile turned into a full cheshire cat grin.

As Jack reached them he filled his body with a strong current of electricity and prepared to make a move, but as it turned out he didn’t need to. The shotgun wielder jabbed Jack in the chest with the firearm and was immediately paralysed, the electricity ran from Jack, straight up the shotgun and into the goon’s body. Every one of his muscles was locked up tight and all the goon could do was stand completely still with his shotgun touching Jack's chest. Luckily he hadn’t had his finger on the trigger, otherwise Jack wouldn’t have a chest any longer.

“Hey, hey what's wrong?” his companion asked, but he received no reply. He grabbed the shotgun wielder’s shoulder but then the electrical current also passed into him and he was also paralysed. Both goons were now frozen in place, wide eyed and letting out small grunts in pain and surprise.

“Well that was easy,” Jack remarked in surprise. He considered what to do with the hapless pair, both stood completely still, if he kept in contact with them then it was likely they would die, enhanced vitality from cultivation or not. Voices emanating throughout the cavern were getting closer, he had to make a decision.

He stepped back and let the electrical current running through his body fade, the pair of goons were still standing up and unmoving so he gave the shotgun wielder a little push. The pair went tumbling down in a heap on the ground, Jack frowned in mild concern before squatting down and checking their pulses. There was a beat for both of them, they just seemed to be unconscious.

He decided he’d leave them like that, neither one of them seemed to be about to wake anytime soon, so they were no longer a threat. He retrieved the second goon's weapon, a straight bladed broadsword about a metre in length and seemed to have a greenish tint to the blade. He gave it a test swing and found it had good balance, definitely better than nothing. He considered also taking a pair of boots from one of them too but a sudden shout behind him dissuaded him from that notion.

“There you are!”

Jack whirled around and saw three of his pursuers running at him, one of the hunters flung a gout of fire at him whilst running and Jack rolled behind a narrow pillar for cover. He saw the entrance to the next floor in front of him and debated whether or not to go for it, another blast of fire hitting his cover and singing his arms decided it for him. He made a break for it and darted over to the entrance to the sixth floor of the dungeon.

He ran down a short flight of stairs before emerging onto the next level, he saw nothing but pitch black darkness beyond the light of the burning braziers surrounding the entrance, he heard his pursuers close behind him on the stairs so he ran into the dark. He found what appeared to be another stone pillar just within the light and ran around behind it.

He was just in time as the three goons who’d spotted him also emerged from the level entrance.

“That little shit killed Neil and James!” one of the goons shouted out.

“No I didn’t!” Jack shouted back indignantly. “They’re both alive! And don’t you think you’re being a little hypocritical? Accusing someone of killing someone else whilst you’re doing the same thing!”

“We’re not trying to kill you sparker! We’re trying to capture you!” a goon shouted back as he rapidly flung several handfuls of fire at the pillar Jack was hiding behind.

“Then stop throwing fire at me!”

The bombardment ceased for a moment and Jack heard the goons start up some sort of debate amongst themselves, about how best to go about capturing him alive. Jack decided to take advantage of the distraction by trying to thin the numbers of his pursuers a little further, however he was still determined not to kill them.

He dipped into his lightning core, picked out a few thin strands of lightning and got ready to throw them. Once he was prepared he quickly stepped out from the pillar and rapidly shot the three goons with moderated lightning bolts, with three loud cracks he hit all three goons centre mass. However it seemed he’d held back too much as none of the goons were down, one was on his knees but the other two just stumbled, they looked back at him, furious. They regained their feet and drew their weapons, one of them held Jack’s own axe.

“That was a mistake, sparker scum,” one of them rumbled menacingly.

They strode towards him, Jack didn’t fancy his chances in melee combat with three hunters all at once, so he opted for another option. He spammed his quick lightning bolt ability, again and again and again, one bolt wasn’t deadly but it slowed them down and made them stumble. He rapidly shot off one quick lightning bolt after another whilst walking backwards, they tried to rush him but they began losing control of their limbs, eventually all they could do was limp and stagger towards him. After a few more bolts all three goons were on the floor in a twitching spasming heap, just within the light of the entryway.

Jack heard the rest of the goon squad shouting and tramping down the stairs to the sixth level, he considered making a stand but knew he couldn’t. He was exhausted, everything hurt, his bones, his muscles, his skin, his brain literally felt like it was trying to escape through his eye sockets and ears. His muscles kept twitching violently and painfully, he could barely stand at this point.

He couldn’t fight, all he could do now was run, so that's what he did, he ran, well, he limped, he limped into the darkness, entrusting it with his safety. The other goons just managed to catch sight of Jack’s fleeing form and followed after him.

Meanwhile, as Jack was being chased through the darkness, back on the fifth level, two hunters lay unconscious and helpless on the ground, occasionally twitching feebly. From behind the various pillars emerged a dozen or so short figures bearing knives, dungeon goblins. They cautiously crept forward until they surrounded the helpless pair, each goblin wearing a too wide grin filled with too many needle-like teeth. One of the goons awoke just in time to see a dozen little knife wielding hands raised and brought down on the pair in a sudden frenzy of gleeful violence and bloodlust.

His frantic dying shrieks echoed throughout the fifth level and made it part way down to the sixth where Jack and his pursuers could still faintly hear it.

Meanwhile, Jack blindly ran on through the darkness, randomly bumping into what felt like stone walls at times, and blindly feeling his way through pitch black empty spaces at other times. He sometimes caught sight of his pursuers when he saw the light of the flashlights and flares they’d brought. From the brief times the light illuminated the goon's surroundings, Jack surmised that the sixth floor may be a copy of the fifth floor with the pillars of stone rising from the ground to the ceiling, but it was all in pitch black darkness.

He didn’t know long he wandered around in the dark for, but it felt like hours, whenever he saw light he went in the opposite direction. Eventually his hands found another solid surface which turned out to be the edge of the sixth floor, though he didn’t know it, all he knew was that it wasn’t another pillar of stone. He blindly limped along with his hands scraping the wall.

Suddenly he felt the wall end, replaced by open air. He waved his arms about through where the wall had disappeared and felt nothing, he got down onto his knees and brought up his hand and raised his index finger. Jack channelled a small amount of lightning to the tip of the finger and risked a small light.

He saw a set of stairs in front of him descending beyond his light into the gloom, it must be the entrance to the next floor. Without a backward glance Jack crawled blindly down the stairs to the next floor.

It was with relief that he emerged into a weak grey light, Jack staggered across a dirt strewn tiled stone floor which eventually gave way to dirt, grass and shrubbery. He looked out into his surroundings and saw that he was in some sort of forest, a small forest underneath the city of York. He couldn’t determine where the light source for this floor was, just that it was a weak grey light in a damp misty forest.

Off in the distance he heard a faint trickle of running water, this reminded Jack that among other things he was incredibly thirsty. Without any further thought he set off towards the sound of water, he brushed past low hanging tree branches and stepped over fallen logs and small boulders until he arrived at the sound.

If Jack had been thinking clearly and was not exhausted from hunger, thirst and blood loss from various wounds, he might have thought this looked too good to be true. A small river of clean, pristine looking water smoothly ran its way in a gentle arc through the trees and bushes. Sparsely dotted along the river bank appeared to be old manmade stone ruins, similar to Greek or Roman architecture, crumbling and overgrown by various plant life.

Jack dropped his sword and stumbled forward, staggering into the river, he submerged his face into the water and drank in great gulps. Once he came up for air, Jack saw the too good to be true portion of the scenario lined up along the river glaring at him menacingly. Goblins, always with the goblins, this dungeon loved its goblins, maybe because it was a low ranking dungeon and goblins were comparatively inexpensive?

In any case there were about twenty of the little buggers gathered along the river edge just a few metres away. They seemed to be dressed in some sort of forest camouflage made of animal hides, leaves and sticks with mud smeared across their faces, they all wielded crude stone implements such as stones axes and stone knives. They watched him silently and seemed to be waiting for something. Jack cupped some more water with his hands and brought it up to his face for a drink without taking his eyes off them.

One of the goblins stepped over to his sword, which lay on the river bank and bent to pick it up.

“Hey!” Jack cried out in protest and then it was on. As one the goblins let out a shrill cry and leapt into the water, Jack simply rolled his eyes. He didn’t feel threatened, at this point he’d learnt that one of the worst places to fight a lightning cultivator was in the water, and he was standing in the middle of a river.

Jack channelled a moderate amount of lightning into his body and when the first of the goblins came within a couple of metres of him it just fell face first into the river and didn’t get up. The rest of the goblins tried to swarm him but most of them met the same fate, they were electrocuted and if that didn’t kill them then being submerged in water and drowning probably didn’t do them any good either.

In the end only two managed to avoid this fate, when they saw their comrades all fall lifelessly into the water they panicked and attempted to flee. Jack wasn’t in a charitable mood and lunged though the water to grab them both by the scruffs of their necks. When he had them he channelled some lightning into them and forced their faces under the water. One of them quickly succumbed but the other held on, a little stronger than the others.

At this Jack was curious, the conversation he’d had with director Welts about using live people and animals as cultivation materials came to his mind. He lifted the green semi comatose little monster up in front of his face and looked at it speculatively. It shivered and twitched, Jack pushed a small pulse of energy into the goblins, then he pulled.

“HOLY SHIT!” The sudden surge of energy caught him by surprise, but it was good, no, it was great! The energy coursing through his body into his core was nothing like the energy he normally got from monsters or mutated animals, he felt incredible! Normally the electricity he gathered from his kills diffused into his body, then he had to draw it into his core to increase his strength. But this stuff just jetted straight into his core, it was amazing! He could literally feel his lightning core swell and grow in power just from this one goblin. It was like gulping down cold clear spring water when before he’d been drinking dirty water from a pond. All his exhaustion and pain just washed away.

He drew everything he could from the goblin and let it fall into the water once he felt it had nothing left to give, around him wisps of multicoloured light and vapour began to rise from the dead goblins.

From just this one dungeon goblin he’d cultivated more in one minute than he had from multiple hunts and multiple monsters.

Why? What was different from how he normally cultivated? Was it because it was still alive? Or because it was made by a dungeon? Jack was lost in thought, standing in the middle of the river.

“THERE HE IS!” Suddenly a loud voice interrupted his musings, Jack looked up quickly just in time to see a gout of fire flying towards him. He dived under the water and swam downstream a few metres before coming back up. He looked over to where he’d been and saw four goons glaring at him, they began to run along the river bank towards him, Jack whirled around and got out of the river before running away.

He ran into the trees and took cover behind some bushes.

“Find him! He can’t be far!” a familiar voice called out, the B ranker.

Jack peeked from behind his hiding place and saw a lone goon coming towards him, alone and isolated, he was carrying Jack's spear, perfect. Jack grinned and got ready, once the goon got close Jack sent a lightning infused palm straight into the goons chest where his heart should be. He was through playing games and being nice, it was kill or be killed now.

His palm slammed onto the goon's leather chest armour, Jack sent a strong surge of lightning straight into the goon’s heart. The goon didn’t make a sound, just looked at Jack with wide surprised eyes for a moment then smoke came out of his mouth before he collapsed to the ground, dead.

Jack let out a deep breath, staring down at the man he’d just intentionally murdered, already wisps of multicoloured light and vapour were emanating from his body. Jack didn’t let himself dwell on it and decided to keep moving, looking for the other hunters after retrieving his spear.

In the end he managed to pick off two more of his pursuers one after the other until he ran into trouble, the B ranker, Jack tried to ambush him. To say it went disastrously wrong would be an understatement.

Jack attempted the standard technique of jumping from the bushes and sending a handful of lightning straight into a weak spot like the heart or the spine. But the B ranker seemed to know Jack was there before he even moved, when Jack got close behind him, the B ranker suddenly spun around and grabbed Jack by the neck.

“Hey there sparker, been lookin’ for ya.” He grinned, then Jack felt a terrible icy fire running through his veins. He tried to scream but his throat was being crushed, the pain was unlike anything he’d felt before, it was like every blood vessel had molten metal running through it and had frostburn at the same time. Now Jack knew what this guy's element was, he was a water cultivator, and he was manipulating the water in Jack’s blood.

He desperately tried to channel some lightning into his body but it felt like his element was being overpowered.

“Nuh uh, that's not gonna work. You might be able to cultivate, freak, but you’re still too weak to match elements with someone like me,” the B ranker gloated. But then the sound of a branch cracking from behind him announced the presence of someone else.

“What about me?” a familiar female voice sounded.

All colour drained from the B ranker’s face, he dropped Jack onto the ground from a suddenly sweaty palm and slowly turned around.

“Y - Y - You,” he stammered.

“Me,” Cheryl purred. “Me, me, me.” She was wearing a smart casual dress and blouse as if still at work in one of the guild offices, though she wore nothing on her currently bare feet.

Cheryl’s face was one of calm anger, she glided forward on light feet and reached up to grasp the B ranker's face, he tried to resist but she seemed somehow to be physically stronger than him. She was an average sized woman at five and a half feet with a slim build and he was pushing six feet packed generously with lean muscle but she still managed to pin his face to the forest floor with one hand.

When he was down she removed her hand and kept him in one place with a foot on his chest, driving the breath out of his lungs, then she raised a hand into the air and pointed up. Rapidly, several metres above her, a large white glimmering shard of ice manifested out of thin air.

The goon looked up in horror.

“Ice!? That's not possible!” he wheezed out.

Cheryl rapidly swung her hand down and the shard of ice shot down into the B ranker’s head. His head disappeared into a bloody crater on the forest floor.

With that done Cheryl turned to Jack with a look of concern.

“Are you ok Jack?” She walked to where Jack was getting to his knees.

“Urgh, yeah, just fine and dandy,” he said while rubbing his throat. He got to his feet with Cheryl’s assistance.

“How are you here?” he asked in a small amount of wonderment.

“Your pager has a GPS tracker in it, when it failed to move for some time while you were out on that harvesting job we were alerted. A team was sent to survey the area and we found your pager along with your car, so we knew you’d disappeared," she explained.

“Ok, but how did you know I was here?” he asked.

“Easy, we saw a load of pager GPS signals approaching yours before turning around to go straight to this dungeon. We saw those pagers belonged to a group of hunters that were known to be antagonistic to you so we followed them. The idiots thought to get rid of your pager but not their pagers, morons.” She shook her head scornfully before looking at Jack. “Anyway, are you hurt? Or are you ready to get out of here?” she asked.

Jack looked down at himself, he was covered in cuts and bruises, some of the cuts looked pretty deep but he was no longer bleeding. In fact most of his wounds had already scabbed over and looked like they’d begun healing. A benefit of cultivation, right now his only ailment was a bone deep weariness.

“Ready to get out of here please.” Jack sighed tiredly.

“Good, we’ll talk on the way.” With that, Cheryl took the lead and led Jack out of the dungeon. On the sixth floor however she and Jack actually explored the area a little, Cheryl informed Jack that randomly located throughout the floor were braziers filled with Everburn coal, it was a type of coal that when lit, didn’t stop burning weeks. It was considered a valuable resource for fire cultivators. Once they’d filled a bag full of it they moved on.

Up on the fourth floor Jack bade Cheryl wait for him before he dived into the lake. He swam to the bottom and located the Cerulean Vitae. It was a long stalked flower with the petals resembling blue delicate tendrils. He grabbed the flower and swam up to the surface before crawling back onto the wall.

“Hah! I got it! This nightmare might actually be worth it if I can sell this damn thing!” he exclaimed triumphantly.

Cheryl was leaning against the wooden railing staring disinterestedly at her phone, she looked up at him.

“Cerulean Vitae huh? Yeah you could’ve made some good money from that thing,” she told him casually. “It's a shame.”

“Huh? Could’ve? What's a shame?” Jack asked in confusion.

“Cerulean Vitae flowers are incredibly fragile, that things a goner, look at it. What did you do to it anyway?” she asked.

Jack looked down at the flower, she was right, now that he saw it in more light, it looked completely ragged. It was charred and shredded, several tendril-like petals dropped to the floor as he watched.

“Erm, I may have stood next to it and unleashed a massive surge of lightning while being attacked by a load of fish monsters,” he admitted guiltily.

“Hmm, yeah, that’ll do it.” She nodded before standing up straight and walking along the wall to the next floor up, Jack followed along dejectedly.

They spoke while they walked through the dungeon, Jack told Cheryl what had happened and was relieved when she believed him. Cheryl then explained that despite what happened in the dungeon, it was going to be kept in house and the police wouldn’t be involved. The hunters guild would deal with it as an internal matter. Despite how massively illegal that probably was, Jack felt even more relieved considering he and Cheryl were the only ones to be walking away alive from this, out of around ten or twelve other people. He may have just been defending himself but it didn’t look good, no matter how you explained it.

As well as explaining what had happened to him, Jack was also curious about the last thing the B rank goon had said.

“Hey, before you erm….finished that guy off, down on the seventh floor, did he say ice was impossible? Why is ice impossible? It's water isn’t it?” he asked.

Cheryl glanced at him while walking. “Clearly ice isn’t impossible, it's just beyond most water cultivators. And I think for some cultivators, particular abilities come easier than others.”

“Particular abilities? What do you mean?”

“There are certain mindsets I think you have to be in, in order to use your element a certain way beyond the basics. For water, most of us can control the movement of bodies of water, shape it and direct it, and then start summoning it from nothing, most everyone can do that after some cultivation and practice, those are the basics. But after that the information on what to do is less well known, we still haven’t been doing it long enough to know what comes next, we’re still pushing the limits of what's known when it comes to cultivation. I can summon ice because I can put myself into a certain mindset when I need to, it's all about mental discipline and emotional control.”

“Oh really? What mindset?” he asked in curiosity, Nate had mentioned hunger for fire, he wondered what Cheryl felt, but all he got was a splash of water in the face.

Once they were finally out of the dungeon Cheryl gave Jack a lift in her car back to his place and dropped him off there, before heading back to the guild HQ. Jack stumbled tiredly in bare feet to his front door and staggered inside.