Chapter 21

After driving another hour or so they were well into the south of England, the motorway they were driving on was a little busier than in the north of England for some reason. This caused them to attract more than a few odd looks from fellow travellers as Nate sped down the highway upwards of seventy miles an hour.

Their windows were fully open, partly to help with the smell emanating from Stacey but also to clear out the multicoloured vapour that was wafting from the monster blood they were all covered in. The car left a trail of multicoloured vapour behind it.

Just as they caught sight of Cambridge on the horizon, Jack suddenly had a thought.

“Just a thought guys, but us going into that abandoned village, wasn't that technically moonlighting? Or Freelancing? Aren’t we supposed to like…..I dunno…not do that?” he asked.

“That was a detour, not moonlighting,” Nate spoke up while his eyes were still on the road. Jack sent a quizzical look to Stacey who simply shrugged tiredly from where she was lounging.

“It was a detour, we got a flat, we needed to pee, we got lost. Take your pick. No one will ask where we got the Red Vine or the monster blood from, they’ll just be happy to buy it from us.” She yawned.

“You guys are bad influences, I like it. If anybody does ask we should probably say Nate got us lost, that sounds believable,” Jack said and Stacey nodded with a smirk.

“Hey!” Nate objected indignantly.

They continued to drive until they reached the city of Cambridge, a well known city in England famous for its university. Cambridge was like York and the various other larger cities in the UK, it and its people had managed to enjoy a relatively normal way of life since the advent of magic and monsters sweeping over the world. The hunters of Cambridge had apparently worked tirelessly to protect the city and had racked up a famous set of victories against some infamous monsters.

The guild HQ for the local branch was located just north of the city centre settled within a curve of the River Cam.

They parked in a nearby open parking area and took their first look at the Cambridgeshire hunters guild HQ. It looked different from the one in York to say the least, where the North Yorkshire HQ was a large square, modern glass fronted building, the HQ in Cambridge looked more like a combination of modern and cathedral-like gothic architecture. Instead of one large building it appeared to be multiple tower-like edifices, connected to one another by covered walkways on multiple levels. While York had its HQ bordered directly by city streets and other buildings separated only by a courtyard and iron gates, Cambridge had its HQ surrounded by green lawns, parks and gardens.

“Shit, this place is nice,” Jack stated bitterly.

Nate and Stacey could only stare at it all and silently agree.

“Er, let's go.” Jack led the way along a path through a manicured lawn towards the front entrance, a set of steps leading up to an open set of large double doors that one might find on a church or cathedral.

They stepped through onto a shiny black marble floor, inside the decor was the same elegant gothic architecture with a modern twist. The entrance hall stretched outward, large white and grey statues of various monsters lined the walls and a grand staircase with gold railings rose to the next level. Up above them, similar to the HQ in York, the gold railings of the different balconies for each floor of the building were visible so that the ceiling of the very top of the tower was visible from the ground floor. On the other side of the hall, a large hallway stretched onwards to another tower, everything seemed to be done in shiny black and gold.

“What the fuck? Why isn’t our pace like this?” Jack whispered to the others.

“Our place's entrance hall looks like a dentist's waiting area compared to this,” Stacey complained morosely.

“It's all so shiny.” Nate looked around, his voice echoed around the hall.

“Excuse me? Can I help you?” a soft feminine cultured voice sounded from their left, they looked over and saw a pretty young woman sitting at a large receptionist's desk.

“Uh, yeah,” Jack replied, he and Stacey walked over to her but Nate wandered off elsewhere into the hall.

“We’re from the North Yorkshire branch, we’re here for a hunt,” Stacey told her.

“Oh? Oh yes! I believe your branch phoned ahead, can I see the lead hunters licence please? Jack Errant wasn’t it?” She looked at them expectantly and Jack handed her his licence. She looked at it for a moment.

“Looks good, have you got any paper work for me?” Again she looked up at them and Stacey handed her a folded and slightly crumpled piece of paper from her pocket, it had a light spattering of something brownish on it. The receptionist took it gingerly in between a finger and thumb, giving them both an uncertain look before peering at the form briefly.

“Uh, right. Yes, this also looks…..fine. Um…..are these…….nevermind. Everything is in order, you’re clear to proceed for the D rank hunt of a Black Shuck within the county of Cambridgeshire.” She carefully set the form down to one side.

“Thanks!” Jack told her before he felt a tap on his shoulder.

“Pardon me, but are you Jack Errant? The lightning cultivator?” Jack turned around and found himself facing a small group of armoured hunters. The person who’d spoken was a young man around Jack’s age with wavy blonde hair, wearing a set of black and silver armour made of a strange unknown metal. Around him were similarly young hunters, both men and women.

“Erm, yeah. That's me. Pleasure to me ya.” Jack extended his hand, it never hurt to be polite to strangers.

The man looked down at his hand dubiously for a moment before smirking slightly. “Ah ha! I knew it was you,” he said in triumph with a cultured southern accent, making no move to shake Jack’s hand. “Tell us, is it true you killed Eric Flamewrought’s son?” he asked and Jack winced.

“The erm…the guild doesn’t really want me talking about it. I think as far as they’re concerned it's over, you know, everyone should just move on,” Jack told them, putting his hand back down.

“Oh really? Because I heard you killed Barry’s entire crew after you lured them down into a dungeon,” one of the young women spoke up with a grin.

“No no, that's not true, he ambushed them while they were on their way out of a dungeon after a successful delve,” another one of the group spoke up.

They jokingly shared different theories and rumours back and forth, sniggering and laughing all the while. A couple of them weren’t far off the mark.

“I’ll have you know Jack was completely exonerated by the guild,” Stacey indignantly told them all.

“Oh? And who’s this pretty little thing?” The lead young man turned to look at Stacey with a smile. “I haven’t seen you here before, are you with Mr lightning cultivator here? I don’t suppose either of you are here to transfer to Cambridgeshire?” He flashed a perfect set of white teeth at her in a charming smile.

“No, we’re here for a hunt,” Stacey told him, she crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at him in annoyance.

“Hmm, a shame. I think a beauty like you and the world's first lightning cultivator are wasted up in North Yorkshire,” he told them with false regret before sharing a smirk with his friends.

“What's that supposed to mean? What's up with North Yorkshire?” Jack asked with a frown.

“Haha! Everyone knows about the yorkies, your territory is always asking for help from others in dealing with A and B rank monsters. Your hunters are only able to deal with the weaker monsters, your director essentially babies you, he’d rather risk the lives of hunters from other territories than his own. Because he knows he doesn’t have any real hunters, North Yorkshire is kind of a joke at this point.” He shared a laugh with his group of friends.

“Uh huh, well, first of all, fuck you and…..no, that was my one and only point, Stacey?” Jack turned to Stacey, hoping she would have a rebuttal.

“Hmph, joke all you like but we still get the job done. And so what if we call for help occasionally, at least we don’t throw droves of low ranked hunters at A and B rank monsters, getting everyone killed. A hunter's death is supposed to be a rarity, not a common occurrence.” She prodded a finger at his chest.

However the young man continued smirking. “Oh really? Then how do you explain what happened with Flamewrought’s son? And his entire team? Hahaha!” The Cambridgeshire hunters shared a laugh. “Well then, we’ll let you get back to your ‘hunt’.” He put up air quotation marks when he hunt, he and his friends left, laughing and sniggering.

“Hmm, I suppose there’s one like that everywhere you go. I really don’t know why some people have to act so antagonistically. Why can’t everyone just be nice to each other?" Stacey shook her head with a sigh.

“Because there’s too many dickheads in the world. Anyway, where's Nate? He could’ve confused and annoyed them into leaving us alone straightaway.” Jack looked around until he saw Nate standing by one of the giant monster statues.

“There he is.”

Nate was leaning against a statue at the other end of the hall about forty metres away, talking to a couple of female hunters wearing black and red armour. Jack couldn’t quite hear what he was saying but he caught one word in several.

“I....after…..tonight……..you……with us……..back into…….hunt…..me……both of you?” It was at this point that one of the women unleashed a slap across his face that echoed across the hall, leaving Nate reeling while they walked away in a huff.

Jack and Stacey walked up to him while Nate was staggering to his feet, leaning against the statue.

“You struck out?” Jack asked with a grin.

“I’m playing the long game, I’m in their heads now.” Nate rubbed the side of his face, still looking rather unsteady.

“Uh huh, ‘course you are. Well, shall we get going? It's nearly evening and the monster apparently only comes out at night, hopefully it’ll be misty, then we can wrap this up in no time at all.”

Jack, Nate and Stacey left the entrance hall to the Cambridgeshire hunters HQ and went back to their car for the drive to the small city of Ely, just north of Cambridge, essentially back the way they came.

It was an uneventful drive that only took them an hour up the road. Ely is a cathedral city like York, however it is a much smaller city with only a little over twenty thousand people living there compared to York’s one hundred and twenty thousand.

The city was a rather old one and had started out as an abbey in mediaeval times before being rebuilt as a cathedral with a town growing up around it. Around two years ago before everything changed, the city was surrounded by a network of rivers and streams. However now the rivers had swollen and the entirety of the surrounding land had become a gigantic marsh, encircling the city completely and partially submerging or sinking several of the surrounding villages.

The government had been forced to abandon the old roads leading to Ely completely, which had sunk beneath the marshland. Instead they had relied upon groups of increasingly useful, independent construction firms made up of earth cultivators to quickly construct elevated and suspended roads above the marshes.

However, building said roads have proven somewhat more difficult than anticipated as the workers would often find themselves wandering into the marsh, following strange lights through the mist, never to be seen again.

Jack and co drove along an elevated highway through the marsh, about ten metres above ground level. They’d been concerned that it wouldn’t be misty that night, but it seems they needn’t have worried at all, as thick banks of mist rested over the marsh. In fact, they could barely see the ground at all. Apparently it was always misty in the marsh.

Eventually they got to the end of the elevated highway and began a slow descent into the city just as twilight was setting in, passing through the open gates of a large thick wall surrounding the settlement.

“Oh wow.” The three hunters gawped out from the car windows as they drove into the city proper.

Rather than finding a desolate city clinging to existence in the middle of a haunted monster infested marsh, everywhere they looked beautiful lanterns were hung between buildings, hundreds of them, thousands. Many people were out and about, even at such a late hour, they walked along wide pavements and avenues, talking and laughing, eating at local restaurants or bars, getting some Christmas shopping in. Canals seemed to be everywhere along with high stone bridges crossing over them, every house also looked to have chimneys attached to them from which white steam emanated.

Soon after the three hunters drove through the main gate they were directed by a police officer to park at a nearby car park near the walls. Apparently the city of Ely had become a no traffic zone. They found that the only way to get across the city was to walk, cycle or ride on the small barges that travelled on newly constructed canals forming a network throughout the entire city.

Jack, Stacey and Nate stood near the gate they’d just entered, looking into the city, Ely had certainly adapted well to all the changes that had swept the world. This was confirmed when Nate flagged down a passerby and asked about the strange beautiful lights that were hung everywhere.

“Hey! Hey buddy! What's with these lights? They look weird,” he asked as tactfully as Nate was known to.

The stranger, an older man, didn’t appear offended, but instead answered cheerfully. “Ah, you from out of town? Yeah, lots of people ask about the lights. They’re from the marsh, they’re called Will-o’-the-wisps but most people just call them marsh lights. There’s these monsters in the marsh called Marsh Fishers, they make this gooey stuff that goes hard and produces a glowing light, then they use the light and pheromones to lure prey in. Nasty buggers.”

“Huh, so these lights are from monsters, Marsh Fishers, so many?” Stacey asked.

“Yes indeed, there are lots of Marsh Fishers out there and after the first few hunts into the marsh brought back a load of marsh lights they found the stuff just kept glowing. It takes weeks for one to fade and the marsh never seems to run out, so the city put out an ongoing bounty for any marsh lights a hunter could bring back. It's great stuff, hell, it can even produce heat if you pour water on it, though that makes the marsh light wear out faster and makes steam.”

“Wow, this stuff sounds pretty good.” Jack looked up to examine a brace of nearby marsh lights hanging from a lamppost, they glowed with a bright, white, pleasant luminosity that looked almost organic.

“Mm, if you want, a lot of the shops in Ely sell them in glass containers for light or water containers you can use as a heater.”

“We just might look into that, thanks.” With that they said goodbye to the helpful local man and debated what to do next.

“What should we do? Ask around?” Jack asked the others.

“That might be best, we only know this thing has been sighted around Ely, around Ely is a big area. Wandering off into unfamiliar marsh land at night seems like an effective way to get killed,” Stacey said before walking into town.

They questioned various people until they were put on the right track when a lady directed them to the local guild outpost. In some settlements that were not home to a guild branch HQ like York, Cambridge or Sheffield, there was instead a guild outpost.

The vast majority of UK settlements didn’t have one, but most of the larger cities with their dense populations did. It also seemed that if an otherwise small town or village was located near a high value area such as a dungeon, magical anomaly or a monster infested marsh brimming with valuable magical materials, then the guild was likely to set up shop there as well.

The outpost was a small two storey brick building, and like every other building in Ely, only accessible by bridge due to all the new canals that crisscrossed the small city.

The three hunters walked into the simple unassuming building, inside it was relatively quiet, half a dozen or so people sat at tables, though they were drinking and eating merrily with each other. Judging by their armour and nearby equipment, they looked to be hunters.

The room they were in looked fairly large at around ten square metres, to the left of the entrance was a bar with a large mirror behind it and at the far end was a notice board with various pieces of paper pinned to it. Upon further inspection, the notice board was actually a bounty board, the papers had details and illustrations of various monsters and materials upon them.

Overall, if Jack had to decide, the whole set up gave him a distinctly wild west saloon vibe, and wondered if someone had actually taken inspiration from certain old movies for the interior decoration. Although he doubted many old west saloons had such lovely dark cherry wood plank floors.

“Howdy partner!” Someone greeted them from the bar, they looked over and saw a middle aged man in a white shirt cleaning a glass, smiling at them.

“Howdy.” Jack smiled back as he and the other two stepped over to the bar.

“You guys from out of town? Hunters?” he asked them.

“Yeah, we’re here to hunt a Black Shuck,” Stacey told him.

“Ah! We were wondering who was coming for that hunt, I was told by the director to reserve it for some hunters coming down from North Yorkshire, that would be you then?” He nodded his head to them.

“Yep, that's us, we were wondering if you had any information on the beast, where it normally appears, where it was last seen, anything you have on it really,” Stacey said.

“Yes indeed, I was actually told to give something to you.” He ducked underneath the bar for a moment and fumbled around before coming back up with a folder, the folder was labelled as ‘Beast of Ely ?Black Shuck?’. He handed it to Stacey who took it and looked through it.

“Oh? Oh! This is really helpful! Thanks!” She smiled widely in gratitude as she leafed through the various documents in the folder.

“What’s in it, Stace?” Nate and Jack crowded her to take a look at the folder in her hands, inside it was all sorts of information about their quarry.

Pictures of the beast, pictures of its paw prints, a map of known locations it frequents, pictures of its dung for some reason, a list of known foods and more. It was a meat eater.

It was far far more than they’d been expecting, Jack looked up in frank surprise.

“This is great, but where did you get all this?” he asked, feeling very impressed.

“Ah yes, that would be courtesy of our friendly neighbourhood surveyor Eddy, over there.” The barman nodded his head over to the far corner of the room where a rather grizzled, tired looking middle aged man in a camouflage leather duster coat was sitting hunched over at a table by himself, drinking some sort of liquor, reading a book.

Nate went over to him. “Hey man!”

“It's all in the file,” the surveyor Eddy, gruffly told him without looking up from his book.

“Uh no I was gonna-” Nate started but he was interrupted again.

“Just read the file,” Eddy said again in a bored drawl without looking up.

“Uh ok.” Nate turned around and went back to the bar.

At his mild nonplussed look the barman just laughed.

“Hahaha! That’s just Eddy for ya. Surveyors are a breed apart aren't they? Hahahaha!” he chuckled. “But anyway, good luck with that thing, it nearly killed a couple of hunters already and it even managed to make its way into town a few times, killing a few civilians before we drove it off. Be careful, it's a big ‘un.”

Stacey nodded before thanking the man again and leading Jack and Nate outside. Jack perused the contents of the folder.

“So, according to this, the beast is normally found in the area around the west gate, that's the gate hunters use to go out into the marsh. There’s an old church that sank into the marsh some ways out there, it says we should aim for that. Wow he’s really spelled it out for us hasn’t he?” Jack passed the folder to Stacey.

“Hmm, yeah looks good to me, shall we?” Stacey asked before the three hunters began making their way over to the west gate.

As they were walking through the city, surrounded by the warm white glow of the marsh light lanterns and the gentle sound of water in the canals, Jack had a question.

“Hey, so, I’ve heard about the surveyor corp a few times now, I know they’ve got a whole floor to themselves back in our HQ, but….who exactly are they? What do they do?” he asked.

“Hmm, actually I think it's like that barman said, they’re a breed apart,” Stacey told him before continuing. “They’re sort of like the scouts of the guild, they’re responsible for things like investigating monster sightings, checking out monster nests, going through the wilderness, making maps and other stuff. I don’t know too much about it but a lot of what we do winds up coming from them, ask Cheryl next time you see her. She works with them, or she runs them, I’m not sure which. I still can’t pinpoint exactly what she is in the guild actually.” Stacey frowned and scratched her head.

“Hey are we heading out or not?” Nate called out from up ahead, Stacey and Jack had stopped while they were talking and Nate had carried on until he realised he was alone.

They caught up with him and continued on, eventually reaching the city wall and the west gate.