Chapter 24

After the plethora of loot from various monsters and harvested materials Jack had dropped off for him, Gary finally came through on some of his earlier promises when he visited him three months after the hunt for the Black Shuck.

“Ah Jack! There ya are!” Gary greeted him as Jack strolled into the workshop.

“Hey Gary,” Jack greeted him with a smile as he leaned against a workbench. “So, you said you have something for me?”

“Oh yes! A few things actually, armour and weapons!” He grinned widely before hustling up the stairs to the upper level of the workshop. Jack heard some rustling around and some banging before Gary came down with an armful of boxes. He carefully laid them out on a workbench and waved Jack over.

He opened the first one, in it was a thick padded black sleeveless flak jacket, similar to what Jack already wore as armour now.

“Another kevlar flak jacket?” Jack cocked his head to the side.

“Uh uh, not just any flak jacket. This was made using the silk webbing you gave me from that Glimmer Spider you hunted a while back. This stuff is ridiculously strong, didn’t you notice how none of the stuff broke or snapped when you were gathering it?” Gary asked, Jack shrugged.

“Well anyway, I don’t know of any other thread that offers this much strength to weight ratio, it's better than any other natural silk or technical thread out there. I doubt anything will pierce it, and it's also highly resistant to heat. Go ahead, try it on.” Gary picked it up and handed it over.

Jack took it and was immediately surprised, it was much lighter than his other jacket, it still included the small metal plates but now it seemed to weigh next to nothing. He put it on, it felt good, light and flexible. He looked in the mirror and saw that the right side of the chest had the crimson rampant bull wrapped in chains displayed proudly, in fact it was much larger than on his previous jacket.

“It feels good. Anyway I gave you a lot of webbing, how many other vests did you make? Are you going to sell them?” Jack asked as he got used to the feel of the new torso amour.

“I was able to make another thirty with what ya got me, I’ll keep a couple spare for you. But the others I’ll sell for twenty grand each,” Gary answered with a smug grin.

Jack whistled. “Wow, and the hunt only cost you two grand, not a bad profit.” He gave Gary a raised eyebrow.

“Hah, there’s more profit in selling spades and picks to gold miners than going out and digging yourself,” Gary retorted with a sly smile.

“I suppose that's true, anyway…I’ve been meaning to ask….um, the flak jackets are great and all but….” Jack trailed off, unsure how to broach the subject.

“Mm? What about them?” Gary narrowed his eyes suspiciously, always so protective of his work, like a proud parent.

“Well…I was just wondering why it's always flak jackets, light armour ya know, I mean I always see other hunters wear thick plate armour, monster bone or hides or something. Not that I’m complaining or anything,” he hurriedly added on.

“Hmph, other hunters eh? If other hunters were to jump off a cliff would you follow ‘em?” Gary asked with a roll of his eyes.

“Well….depends how high the cliff is, maybe on a dare.” Jack gave him a cheeky grin.

Gary rolled his eyes before going to his store room, Jack heard him rummaging around before he emerged again bearing a piece of armour. It appeared to be a thick silver breastplate and backplate attached to each other with thick straps. Gary hefted it over and deposited it onto a workbench with a booming clatter.

“This is a prototype I made using some of the materials you provided me, haven’t thought of a name for the alloy yet, still need to patent it. Anyway, this stuff will pretty much stop almost any attack from a high rank monster, it's similar in strength and weight to other high rank armours out there now. The flak jacket you’ve got on now is good for anything low to mid rank and it's a hell of a lot lighter and more flexible than anything else you’ll ever find,” Gary said proudly.

“Ok, so why can’t I wear the plate now?” Jack asked.

In response Gary lifted the breastplate and backplate off the workbench and raised them over Jack’s head and fitted them over the flak jacket he wore. As soon as Gary let them rest on Jack shoulders Jack could feel the immense weight pressing down on him. This definitely wasn’t normal armour, his legs had actually buckled momentarily when he felt the full weight for the first time. He tried to move forward but it felt like he was walking through water.

At seeing his difficulty, Gary spoke up. “That's just the cuirass, imagine wearing the full set. You can hardly move, can you not?”

“Urgh, the hell? Why is it so heavy?” Jack groaned.

“It has to be that heavy, it's supposed to stand up to attacks from powerful monsters like Black Grints and Golems. If you want something that weighs as light as a feather and is still stronger than a solid foot of steel, you’ll have to go out and kill a dragon or something, and harvest its scales,” Gary explained.

“But I see other hunters wearing this stuff all the time,” Jack complained, shifting uncomfortably under the weight of the armour.

Gary sighed in exasperation before helping him remove the armour. “Some of the other hunters wear this stuff, some of them. Most of them wear metal armour and rendered monster parts that are nowhere near as strong and heavy as this stuff, by comparison your flak armour is just as strong but far far lighter. I keep tellin’ you Jack, you're lucky to have met me.” Gary took the plate armour back and Jack sighed with relief, rubbing his shoulders.

“You need to get some more cultivation under your belt, before you can wear something this heavy into a fight,” Gary told him.

Jack shrugged with a sigh. “Fair enough, so…..what else have you got for me?”

Gary grinned and unboxed another item. He revealed a coiled chain, he picked it up and Jack saw it was a long black chain with thin links, this was supposed to be the chain that replaced the one Jack had lost in Cliffords Hill dungeon. But the chain links were much thinner and more delicate looking than his old chain.

Jack gave Gary another sceptical look.

In response Gary wordlessly passed him the chain, as he took the wrapped up coils into his hand he could feel it was much heavier than it looked.

“I infused the chain with a couple of the earth crystals you and Nate got me awhile back, it made the chain far heavier and stronger, so I thought it best to make the links a little thinner and smaller. Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to swing the thing, that also let me make it much longer at fifteen metres. Anyway, try funnelling a bit of lightning into it would ya?” Gary suggested.

Jack did so and immediately the chain links felt like they weighed a tonne, the chain wrenched its way out of his hand and crashed to the floor with a terrific clatter.

“The hell? What happened?” Jack asked in confusion, he frowned and shifted the chain with his foot, at first it didn’t budge at all but after a few seconds he was able to move it. He bent down to pick it up, its weight had returned to normal. “What was that?”

“Ha! I hoped that would happen, I got the same results from a few tests I did but couldn’t be sure the same would happen with the actual lightning element.” Gary looked triumphant.

“Ok, soooo?” Jack spurred him on.

“Well, it seems that due to the earth crystal infusion, whenever an electrical charge is passed through the metal, it becomes much much heavier and denser somehow. I don’t really understand it but that's what happens,” Gary explained happily.

“Wow, that's pretty cool. But a little warning would’ve been nice, I nearly broke my wrist.”

“My bad, but it's pretty good though right? You said you used it to incapacitate monsters, well this should help with that I think,” Gary said proudly.

“Oh yes, I can think of a few hunts where this’ll be useful.” Jack smiled down at the chain. “But erm, I tend to run electricity through my entire body, and having this thing attached to my waist when I’m in the middle of a fight…..it could break my hip,” Jack told him worriedly.

“Ah ah, already thought of that. The holster for the chain sits at the small of your back on your weapon harness, it's lined in rubber so there's no way you’ll accidentally run a charge through the chain. I also made you a normal chain made from a steel tungsten alloy, same as your armour.” Gary brought out a normal steel grey chain from the same box, the links were thicker but the chain was shorter. “Now you can use either one in combat.”

“Nice, thanks old man, these things are definitely gonna see some heavy use. Ya get it? Heavy? Cus of the earth crystal and…nevermind.”

“Mm hm, well then. On to the final piece and some of my finest work I have to say.” Gary opened up the last box on the table. “Now that I’ve perfected it and patented it, this puppy is really gonna sell sell sell!” Gary retrieved what looked to be a straight short sword from the box, upon closer inspection Jack saw it was actually a telescopic spear. Although it seemed larger at three feet in its retracted form than his current spear which was only two feet in length.

“A telescopic spear? Looks bigger, an improved version? The telescopic spear two point O?” Jack asked with an amused smile.

“Yes and no.” Gary said enigmatically. “The telescopic feature is just for convenience, the main feature is here.” He pointed to a section underneath the foot and half long spearhead. It looked like a somewhat bulky rounded boxy addition to the spear haft just underneath the spear head, similar in appearance to a gun magazine. Gary took it and after a click it opened up, he took out what appeared to be a very very large bullet, which took up the entire space of his hand.

“Behold, the exploding spear!” Gary showed off the spear and the bullet proudly.

“Oh yeah, I remember you telling me you were working on that ages ago. So does that bullet thingy make the spear head explode then?” Jack asked in intrigue.

“What? Oh god no. An actual exploding spear head! Can you imagine? I don’t know what I was thinking! Anyway no, this little baby is what actually explodes, think of it as an exploding bullet, a fragmentation grenade and a claymore all in one little package. What you do is, you slot it into the chamber.” Gary did so before snapping the magazine container closed. “You….press one of the extension buttons, press the middle to extend the spear to two metres for fighting normally.” He did so and with a series of crisp clicks the spear shot out from three feet to two metres in length. “Then, when you want to set off the explosive effect, you press the button closest to you to extend it to three metres, the explosion won’t fire unless the spear is fully extended, safety reasons you know.” Gary pressed the other button and the entire spear extended to three metres. “Now you can press this trigger here.” Gary showed him a small trigger on the other side of the spear haft from the buttons. “Let's go outside and I’ll show you how to use it, ‘cus you can’t just aim the thing at a monster and pull the trigger, you gotta use it in a specific situation….but it's so worth it.” Gary gave Jack a grin as he led him outside to the small yard behind the workshop.

Jack followed Gary into the yard which was covered in patchy grass and packed dirt, various rents in the earth and scorch marks. The entire yard was enclosed by a brick wall, on the far side of the yard was a wooden rack holding a row of pig carcasses hanging up by ropes.

They went over to the pigs, Gary had Jack step back before he stuck the spear head deep into one of the carcasses, then he pulled the trigger.

With a dull explosive crump the pig carcass exploded into a shower of gore and fiery smoke and the spear head ripped upwards, slicing through the remnants of the pig. Gary stepped back and turned around with a grin, he was covered in vaporised pig but he seemed happy enough.

Jack was impressed. “Ok, that…….was pretty cool.” He looked in wonder at the spear and at the destruction it had wrought.

“Yeah, the way to get full use out of it is to stab something with it, preferably something big which can take the punishment, and to pull the trigger. I guarantee that no matter how well armoured something is, if you detonate this spear inside it, then its insides will become its outsides! And did you see how the spear was ripped upwards? That was the recoil effect, similar to guns, the detonation forces the blade upwards, so it’ll force the spear head through whatever's left of the monster you're fighting, doing extra damage. Pretty good eh?” Again that smug grin, Gary then pressed another button and seemed to twist and pull back a small bolt mechanism, the spent and smoking casing of the bullet tumbled out from a slot in the spearhead firing mechanism.

“Pretty damn good yeah,” Jack said as Gary handed him the spear. “How many er…shells can the magazine hold?” he asked.

“Just the one, I mean….look at it, it's huge. And that was the smallest I could make it too. Yep, these things are filled with a potent combination of old world and new world incendiaries, finding the right mixture was…..interesting. They're a little expensive to make but they're a guaranteed kill for just about any big monster out there. And as long as you get out there and use them properly in front of witnesses, I’ll be able to make more exploding spears for more interested hunters and keep selling these babies for a killing!” Gary said triumphantly.

“I don’t suppose I can get these shells for free?” Jack asked hopefully.

“Hmm, you can have…..ten for free. The rest you have to buy,” Gary told him firmly.

“Aww….how much?” Jack asked hesitantly.

“Four hundred pounds each.”

“What! That's outrageous!” Jack cried indignantly.

“It's a guaranteed kill of a high ranking monster that would normally be hunted for over ten thousand pounds, well worth the cost I reckon. Any C rank hunter and above would probably be fine buying a few at a time, but if you give me the spent casings I’ll give you a small discount,” Gary said.

“Hmm.” In truth that sort of price would probably be ok for Jack too, most of the hunts he did sat at around two or three thousand pounds, he just had to make sure he didn’t waste a shell, that would be a costly mistake. “Well ok then, I’ll take ten for now,” Jack begrudgingly agreed.

After that they wrapped things up, Gary provided him a holster for the new spear which was to attach to his back, it also was lined in rubber. Jack winced at the thought of potentially triggering the detonation effect while the spear was sheathed on his back.

As usual Gary promised to have more jobs for him to do as Jack was leaving, he also promised to look into further upgrades for the spear, hinting at possible uses for fire and wind crystals.

A couple of days later Jack was relaxing in one of the small lounge areas attached to the guild area, watching tv.

The news was on, it was describing the increasing migration of people from the countryside into the cities and towns. Any village that hadn’t been completely abandoned were rapidly becoming veritable fortresses, with denizens building upon the government paid for walls and massively increasing their defences.

These villages seemed to be more and more practising isolationist policies. The people there were more often than not considered to be officially unemployed by the UK government, they seemed to be simply staying and protecting their homes rather than going to work, no longer paying any taxes, bills or outstanding debts like mortgages or credit card debts. Far from being the economic recession experts were afraid of, it seemed matters had gone completely beyond that into entirely new territory.

Likewise in the better protected cities and towns, the situation was still evolving. More and more people were moving into the more densely populated areas of the UK at an increasing rate. Before the great change, housing was already tight but this put an enormous strain on the situation. More than a few people were on the streets, camping in tents, sleeping in vehicles or improvised shelters. The government had forced all the city hotels, hostels and bed and breakfasts to open their doors and even pleaded with normal citizens for use of spare rooms in their homes.

Now, more than a few construction companies were announcing new builds of massive apartment complexes within multiple cities across the UK.

Also, apparently there was a serial killer loose within the country. Dozens of people throughout the UK had been found dead within a couple of months. At first it was questioned why the police thought this was the work of one serial killer, or even multiple human killers rather than by monster and mutated animal attacks. But they answered that all victims had the exact same stab wounds from the exact same knife as each other, all the victims were also in exactly the same state. They all showed signs of heavy electrocution and on further inspection from a mortician, their elemental cores all looked strangely damaged, something they’d never seen before.

Jack winced, this sounded familiar, clearly someone like him with the same element was out there and they didn’t have the same moral scruples as he did. It seemed their preferred cultivation source, or prey in this case, was live humans. He’d been afraid something like this would happen, now it was only a matter of time before someone connected the dots and came to him with questions or accusations. He blamed Eric Flamewrought and the media personally.

He switched the channel to a documentary about the recent development in Shrewsbury, the river Severn that runs through the town had begun to float through the air.

Upon inspection it had been found that clusters of water crystals had grown in various parts of the river bed; the river now runs an elongated, random, meandering, winding course all over and above the city. In one section for example, the river starts at ground level before encountering a cluster of high grade water crystals, then it takes off into the air, does a loop de loop, circles around a church, carries on a stretch before going back down to the river bed, drawn by another set of water crystals before taking flight again. A permanent rainbow from the water vapour in the air can now be seen hovering above the city of Shrewsbury.

It had drawn many spectators and magical researchers as well as forcing a temporary evacuation of the town before people decided there was nothing that could be done about it. After a month there had been no change so people just learned to live with the fantastic spectacle and be secretly pleased with their new waterfront properties.

Another bout of channel hopping brought him nothing particularly interesting until he saw Meredith Shriverston’s face on the screen, he stopped flicking through channels and watched. It was a show about rising stars in the UK hunters guild which had become rather popular and regularly watched within the UK.

More and more, hunters were being considered celebrities in the UK and the rest of the world. Overall attitudes amongst the general public towards hunters were probably mixed, they were often at the centre of some catastrophe or tragedy and thus an easy target for people to blame when things went terribly wrong, whether they were truly at fault or not. But at the same time, they could also often be found slaying terrible creatures and literally saving people from terrible fates.

Thus the media loved them or loved to hate them, which is pretty much the same thing as far as the media is concerned, as long as they had something to talk about. Since the hunters guild and other similar organisations in other countries had dedicated PR teams and the general public didn’t, the stuff being said about hunters on tv and the internet was at least partly positive.

The show Jack was watching spoke about Meredith and detailed her various hunts and achievements to date, Jack had to admit he was impressed. He had no idea Greater London was so dangerous nowadays, it sounded like a monster hunter’s playground, she’d shot up the ranks faster than he had and she was five years younger than him too. He sighed bitterly as he watched clips of her in action, effortlessly dispatching monsters and mutated animals that he himself would hesitate to go up against. In the interviews she did, she always seemed incredibly gracious and eloquent, the interviewers often looked like they were fawning over her halfway through their interviews. Accomplished, beautiful, powerful, loved, she was the perfect guild monster hunter. Whenever Jack found himself unfortunate enough to be called up to the PR office, they would often compare him to her, telling him he needed to emulate Meredith more, engage with the media more often and be more polite to them when he did. Wasn’t it enough for them that he just did his actual job?

The show also detailed stories about various other hunters. Apparently Eric Flamewrought had taken a young hunter under his wing and before he’d set off for Paris he’d been training that hunter personally as a sort of apprentice. This apprentice was already D rank, even younger than Meredith at eighteen and was already single handedly killing monsters Jack wouldn’t even contemplate going up against. The tv showed an image of him. The young man was a little slim but still muscular, clad in dark plate and chain armour lined in silver monster fur, with the left pauldron being the head of some snarling beast. A large axe resting casually over his right shoulder and his left hand rested upon the butt of a rifle. He had a smirk on his pale tattooed face and had windswept brown hair. In Jack’s opinion, he looked like the most arrogant little shit imaginable, but that was probably just Jack’s bias against Eric Flamewrought talking.

The show then spoke about another hunter who wasn’t even a part of the hunters guild though they were still considered a monster hunter of some renown. Apparently they disagreed with the guild policy of protecting cities and larger towns first and foremost, so they spent much of their time in the unforgiving wilderness around the village of Middleton on the Hill in the county of Herefordshire near the Welsh border.

The hunter, a young woman, looked very different from any guild hunter Jack had ever seen. She looked ragged, clad in crude leathers, furs and a seemingly random mix of monster parts, she looked very much like she dwelled in the wilderness. She even carried some sort of giant club made out of monster bone with spikes of some blue metal sticking out of the club head. However, standing behind her, shaking its head and letting out the occasional snort or neigh, was a horse. A massive horse, although calling it a mere horse was like calling a donkey a thoroughbred Arabian. It was shaped like a horse and that was where the similarities ended, for a start it had eight legs, four large legs at the rear and four at its chest, Jack was reminded of ancient Norse mythology, of Odin’s horse Sleipnir. The horse was primarily white due to what appeared to be natural segmented bone armour covering most of its body, legs and head, in between the bone plates black shaggy black fur could be seen. Resting over the horse’s back was an improvised hide and fur saddle. That was clearly some sort of mutant, he doubted anyone could tame a monster. Jack wondered if the hunter had ever been contacted by professional horse breeders.

The village she protected seemed to be surviving well and was one of the villages on a very short list of those that seemed to be turning themselves into massive fortresses. In fact, people had been flocking to Middleton on the Hill from all around because the only other safe population centres were Birmingham and Worcester, and the situation in both those areas was fairly dire. Massive overcrowding and rampant crime were becoming a genuine problem in both towns and so many people from England and Wales instead elected to seek safety in Middleton on the Hill.

The two programme hosts finished by talking about Jack himself, at this he tensed up, expecting the worst.

“So Jenette, what do you think about the world's first lightning cultivator? ‘Hungry Jack’.” The male host asked his fellow co host, Janette. Jack winced, he hated that name.

They brought up various images of his activities from the past several months. They showed him facing down the Glimmer spider just before the fight commenced, another image of him surrounded by a swarm of vicious fairies and another of him looking like a drowned rat after emerging from the freezing river Ouse having collected some Steel Coral.

“Well Mark, we’ve all been watching his progress over the last few months and I have to say….so far I’m quietly optimistic,” Janette stated. Jack tilted his head in confusion.

“Oh really? How so?” Mark asked.

“Well, it seems from the very beginning of his career Jack immediately dived into the hunt and so far hasn’t stopped for breath or slowed down at all. He’s shot up the ranks and from what little we’ve observed of his abilities in combat he’s reasonably powerful for someone who’s only been hunting less than half a year,” Janette explained.

“Hmm, that's all true but what about the controversy of his involvement in Barry Arneson’s death? We still don’t know precisely what happened in that particular incident. And what about his apparent ability to cultivate from living beings? That's got more than a few people nervous, which is understandable I think,” Mark replied.

They went back and forth from there, sharing opinions and theories about him, sharing opinions of normal people on the street. They even dissected and spoke about his brief press release three months ago. Unfortunately they brought up the image of him trying to give everyone a reassuring smile. It was definitely a smile, but it was in no way reassuring, way too much teeth. When the PR team had seen it months ago, they’d forced him to stand in front of a mirror for an hour while they coached him on the proper way to smile! According to them, there were even different ways to smile depending on your audience!

He shook his head and decided to get back to work, it was mid morning and he’d just finished breakfast, time to get to the terminals.

Upon arriving in the jobs and requests room he went to the nearest free terminal and began perusing through the D and E rank jobs. Since there was a lull in requests from director Welts, Gary and Steven the taxidermist, he finally had time to look up a job for himself. He tried to look for a hunt for goblins or any other humanoid or sentient monster. He saw several such jobs, however his eyes became glued to something he’d been hoping to see since he first became a hunter.

Dungeon crawling. An actual dungeon delve, granted it was a D rank job in Clifford’s Hill, as far as dungeons go in North Yorkshire it was the lowest of the low but still, finally, if he selected this he could actually go on a proper dungeon delve rather than a guided tour or being used to farm the…….Cerulean Vitae. Oh, wasn’t that stuff worth hundreds of thousands of pounds? Just one flower and he had the abilities to retrieve it when few others could. Jack felt a massive smile seize hold of his face.

Without any further thought he tapped the request accept icon. It wouldn’t let him. He frowned in confusion, rapidly tapping it again multiple times but still no go. He then saw he needed to be in a team for a dungeon delve. Damnitt. Still, he wasn’t willing to let this opportunity go, so he began texting everyone he knew to see if they were available to team up with him for this.

After a few minutes Stacey, Nate, Rachael and Zack all texted back saying they were on their way. Jack dropped to his knees in relief and raised his arms in triumph, earning himself some very strange looks from other people in the room.

Ten minutes later Zack and Rachael, the brother and sister team and children of director Welts entered the jobs and requests room through the atrium.

“Hey Jack!” Rachael enthusiastically called out with a wave from across the room, Jack waved back.

“Hi Jack,” Zack greeted him with a nod when the siblings reached him.

“Hey guys, ready for a bit of dungeon delving?” Jack asked with a grin.

“Oh yeah! I love dungeon delves!” Rachael exclaimed.

“Definitely, I’m surprised you managed to find it listed, usually dungeon delves, even the Clifford’s Hill one, are snapped up quick. Lucky us I guess.” Zack grinned.

“Yeah, so have you two done dungeon delving before then?” Jack asked.

“Yep, a few times. Only C and D ranked ones though since we’re still D rankers,” Rachael said before sighing. “It's annoying though, we could’ve so done that dungeon in Thirsk,” she said with frustration in her voice.

“Thirsk? You mean that giant tree dungeon?” Jack asked.

“Yeah that’s the one,” Zack said. “It's a B ranked dungeon, low B but still technically a B, so we weren't allowed to do it. Rachael got into a massive argument about it with our father ages ago.”

Jack nodded his head in understanding, he thought he’d sensed some tension between Rachael and director Welts a while back. Or at least Rachael had seemed annoyed, Welts had actually seemed cheerfully oblivious, like always.

“Anyway yeah, our father is a bit of a stickler for the rules.” Zack shrugged his shoulders and gave Jack a ‘whaddaya gonna do?’ look.

“Hmph! It's easy being a stickler for the rules when you’re the one making the rules.” Rachael pouted. “I swear, they get way more freedom in the other guild branches than we do. They don’t have this nonsense of only taking jobs that are your rank or one higher. Any hunter can take any hunt they feel ready for. Why can’t it be like that here?”

“Because half of us would be dead in a year if that were the case?” Zack said with a raised eyebrow.

“Pft half? That's an exaggeration.” Rachael waved him off in dismissal.

Zack turned to Jack with an apologetic expression. “This is an old argument.” Jack shrugged to let Zack know it didn’t bother him.

As Zack and Rachael continued to bicker, Jack looked over to doors just as a very dirty and tired but triumphant looking female hunter staggered in the room, in her hands she held a large plastic hamster cage.

Inside the cage were several very confused and frightened looking hamster sized miniature deer. The twenty or so hunters scattered around the room had all turned to the door to give it the usual disinterested glance as it opened before turning back to what they were doing. However upon seeing the cage full of tiny deer, the room let out a collective ‘awww’ before the hunter with the cage was swarmed by people who wanted a closer look.

Rachael was one of the first amongst them as she barged people out of the way to take a closer look. Jack and Zack watched her go in bemusement.

A minute later the door leading to the guild hall opened and Stacey stepped through. She waved to them and walked over but didn’t say anything as her mouth was full of food. She held up a finger as she continued to munch before swallowing whatever she’d been eating.

“Hey guys, sorry, just finished eating. So, dungeons then?” She smiled at them.

“Dungeons,” Jack confirmed with a nod and a grin. “We’re just waiting for Nate now.”

“What's going on over there?” She pointed to the small crowd.

“Someone brought in a cage full of mini deer,” Zack told her.

“Mini deer?” She looked confused.

“Deer that are small, mutants I suppose. Actually I think me and Nate found some a while ago and then took some pictures of them, it was part of some conservation census thing Nate said,” Jack explained.

“Maybe someone saw the pictures and wanted them as pets?” Zack shrugged.

Another few minutes later saw Nate casually wandered into the jobs room from the atrium door, he sidled past the crowd who still surrounded the hunter with the miniature deer.

“Dungeon delving! Yes! You always find the good stuff for us Jack!” Nate bounded over to them and seized Jack by the shoulders.

“Ah, yeah yeah I know. Can always count on me to find the good stuff,” Jack jokingly bragged.

“Are you guys ready!!?” Nate asked them as if he were trying to psych them up.

“Yeah I guess.” Zack shrugged.

“Mm hm.” Stacey nodded with a vague smile.

“I mean….yeah,” Jack answered awkwardly.

“I said, are you guys READY!!?” Nate crouched down and cupped one of his ears as if to hear them better.

Before they were forced to dig up more enthusiasm to appease Nate, Rachael appeared behind him and roared out. “I”M SO FUCKING READY!!”

However the girl with the hamster cage full of tiny deer was standing close by. The adorable creatures all let out pitiful squeaks in fear and huddled in the corner causing Rachael to immediately rush over to the cage and try to apologise and reassure the tiny creatures.

“Oh my gosh! I’m sorry you little darlings! I’m so sorry! I’ll be quieter!”

The hunter holding the cage was exasperatedly trying to extricate herself from the situation but Rachael had a hold of the cage and was tearfully blubbering over it.

Zack rolled his eyes and went to retrieve his sister.

Now that the whole group was assembled it was time to set off for Clifford’s Hill.