Chapter 28

“You're dripping,” Cheryl told Jack as they walked through the supermarket. He looked at her in confusion, she tapped her nose. He touched his upper lip and realised his nose was bleeding.

“Oh! Right yeah, that happens sometimes.” He wiped his nose and dug out some more painkillers for the headache he realised was coming on.

“By the way Jack, I really need to thank you,” Cheryl told him as they continued walking.

“Huh? Thank me? Why?” he asked in confusion.

“If it wasn’t for you I never would’ve thought of using my element like that,” she informed him, still not really explaining anything, only deepening his confusion.

“Erm, you're welcome I suppose but I’m still not sure what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Back during the beginning of the fight, you remember that giant explosion of fire in front of you?” she asked expectantly.

“The explo? - Oh! Yeah I remember, I thought some fire element sent in a stray attack or something. That wasn’t me, I’m lightning remember? Anyway, how do you even know about that?”

“You are indeed a lightning element, and I know because as a relatively strong water cultivator I’m able to keep track of all bodies of water with a certain radius around me, I can even sense it in other people and lifeforms and use it to recognise individuals I’m familiar with,” she cheerfully informed him.

“Relatively strong?” he said sceptically. “Nevermind, what did that explosion have to do with me then?”

“You were using a weapon with a water crystal infused in it right?” she asked and he nodded in confirmation. “And what is water made of?” Again she looked at him expectantly, like a teacher asking a student a question in class.

“Erm, water? In what context? You mean….oxygen and hydrogen?” he answered and she rewarded him with a smile.

“Correct! And what happens when we light a spark in an area with a high buildup of gaseous oxygen and hydrogen?” She smiled and raised her eyebrows at him.

“Erm, oxygen and hydrogen are highly flammable so..oh. Oh! Okay but how did I make the oxygen and hydrogen in the first place though?”

“Not a clue, I only know the actual process is called electrolysis, the separation of water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen through the use of an electric current. People are looking into it as a means of generating clean energy. Anyway I thought the process needed an electrode to work but you just stumbled onto it by accident in the middle of a fight. Well, whatever, it gives me ideas for my own element and that's what counts. Ooh I’m gonna have some fun with this.” Her face split into a wide feral grin and Jack had to suppress a shudder. “Might also be something for you to look into,” she told him.

They continued walking through the utterly destroyed interior of the supermarket, on the way it was with some relief that Jack spotted Katie and Laurence, both still alive and it looked like they were going to stay that way. Katie was sat down on the floor while a paramedic was wrapping bandages around a leg, Laurence was standing nearby checking his weapon.

They both looked up as he passed and they exchanged friendly nods while Jack and Cheryl passed. Once they were outside Jack let the cool fresh air blow across his face as he took his helmet off, he took in a deep breath and let the tension of the fight drain out of him.

The fresh air also let him know how much he currently stank, he wrinkled his nose at the thick cloying scent of smoke, sweat and blood. He was also drenched from falling in and crawling through filthy water numerous times during the fighting. A steaming hot shower shot to the top of his priorities.

“Good work today Jack, go get some rest,” Cheryl told him.

“Yeah, good idea. Just one last question though,” he said before he left.

“Mm?”

“If you’re one of the guild’s big shots, then why do you sometimes sit at the help desk?” he asked, thinking it a little odd that one of the founders of the UK monster hunters guild would do such low level work.

“Oh that, yeah it helps me keep an ear to the ground in order to scout out talent,” she told him.

“Scout out talent? And did you find any?” He grinned at her and waggled his eyebrows up and down at her. She simply smirked in response.

“That's not the only reason though,” she said, suddenly turning serious.

“What's the other reason?”

“I also like to mess with people,” she told him matter-of-factly, though a ghost of a smirk tugged at the side of her mouth. Jack didn’t know how to respond, a faint trace of indignation rising up within him. He stared at her, his mouth parted slightly. “Go get some rest Jack, you look tired.” She put a hand on his shoulder and gently gave him a push towards the car park.

He sighed, not needing any further encouragement. He nodded tiredly to her then took his leave, wandering slowly through the car park past various journalists who had arrived at the scene, talking into microphones in front of their camera crews. A few of them tried to get his attention but he just ignored them, not in the mood, completely disregarding the advice Meredith had given him earlier

He walked through the streets of the estate along with ten other hunters who’d also decided it was time to head home or back to the guild. He took out his pager and sent a quick gravestone emoji followed by a question mark to Nate. It had become a standard way between hunters who were friends to ascertain whether the other was dead or not. Jack doubted anything could kill Nate, certainly not a rabble of orcs, it never hurt to be sure however. A minute later Jack received a photo of a grinning Nate and his team posing next to a pile of dead orcs, multicoloured light and vapour was beginning to emanate off the monsters, swirling around the hunters. Jack smirked before sending a thumbs up emoji and carried on walking.

It wasn’t exactly a peaceful walk as the evidence of the orc’s rampage was all too apparent all around them, especially the road they were walking down which had a large number of abandoned and damaged vehicles. But whatever peace there was to be had was rudely shattered when a single loud gunshot boomed out from somewhere behind them and one of the hunters went down with half his chest missing. A massive arc of blood spread out in front of the unfortunate hunter as he toppled to the ground like a rag doll.

Everyone stared dumbly for several moments, not able to process what had just happened. The fighting was supposed to be over, they’d won so they got to go home, that's how it’s supposed to work. So why was a comrade now lying dead on the ground?

But then another gunshot resounded through the air and another hunter went down, her head disappearing into red mist and her body toppling to the ground. The spell of indecision and shock was broken and the surviving hunters scattered to find cover.

The gunshots sounded several more times but didn’t find any more live targets, the hunters hid behind various abandoned vehicles. Shots impacted on the vehicles but didn’t hit anyone, however judging by the strength of the impacts the gunman must be wielding something with a very high calibre ammunition, which is what it would take to penetrate armour favoured by monster hunters.

They all hid behind various vehicles, effectively pinned down by the sniper. As if their situation couldn’t get any worse, appearing at both ends of the road they’d been walking down, two large groups of plain clothed humans appeared bearing guns. Any vague notion that these people were here to help the beleaguered hunters was immediately quashed when the gunmen levelled their rifles at them.

Two of the hunters hiding behind cars were earth cultivators so they formed barricades made of asphalt, however the other hunters not including Jack were fire elements. One of the fire elements attempted to get to better cover but soon after he raised his head it was then taken off by the sniper.

Jack elected to simply slide under the car he was hiding behind. Not perfect but it gave him time to think. The gunmen at either end of the street opened fire with automatic weapons, he heard a few screams and cries of pain but despite his concern for the others there wasn’t much he could do to help at this point, he kind of needed help himself. Rapid fire gunshots began impacting the car he was hiding under, broken glass started raining down around him, the car tires were shot out and the car sunk down til was nearly crushing him.

Think, think, think. What to do, what to do.…..Nope, nothing. After all he’d been through, he was about to be shot to death by crazy humans. This wasn’t how things were supposed to be, he was supposed to be eaten by some bloodthirsty monster or melted into a puddle by some monstrosity that vomited acid, a true hunter’s death. Now he was about to be gunned down in the middle of the street.

Jack sighed, at the very least he could make sure he wasn’t still hiding beneath a car when his dead body was discovered by the police. Once again he somewhat regretted getting mixed up in this business, but he didn’t regret becoming a hunter, not for one second.

With that in mind, resolved to die in the least embarrassing way possible, he grabbed a handful of steel marbles from a pouch and slid out from beneath the car. He dipped into his lightning core and sent the energy straight to his brain.

The world slowed down and Jack narrowed his eyes on his first targets. A group of gunmen were walking cautiously down the road towards them from the west, their weapons brought up and ready to fire. Jack didn’t give them a chance and immediately let rip with a handful of steel marbles projected by an extra strong magnetic field. The group of gunmen were torn apart in a flurry of separated limbs and clouds of vapourised blood.

“It's the abomination! Fire! Fire! Kill him!!” Jack heard someone from behind him scream out.

He whirled around to the eastern end of the road and fired off several quick bolts at another group of gunmen. He took one of them down but the others he hit only stumbled before bringing their rifles to bear and opening fire at him. He tried to circle around the car he was using as cover but there were still gunmen coming down the road from the west, dealing with other hunters. They noticed Jack and brought their weapons up to target him, he was also now in the line of fire of the sniper.

This was it, no more cover, he was about to die. He resolved to get one more lightning bolt off before the sniper took his head off or the gunmen riddled him with bullets.

No attack came however, just as Jack stood up and vindictively sent a lightning bolt searing into one of the gunmen’s nether regions, a rapid staccato of gunfire emanated from the north where the sniper’s position was. The gunmen bearing down on Jack all stopped in confusion, looking over to the sniper’s position, before remembering Jack and bringing up their guns to finish him off. However they never got the chance.

All of a sudden the gunmen themselves came under multiple heavy gunfire from the sniper’s position and began dropping like flies. Just like the hunters before them they sought cover behind the various abandoned vehicles, but the surviving hunters weren’t allowing that.

Jack stomped his way over to the nearest gunman, grabbed him by the front of his shirt and roughly hauled him up. He was a relatively large man, looking to be over six feet tall with the addition of a fair amount of muscle and fat, he was wearing plain clothes without any armour. He attempted to struggle and fight back but Jack manhandled him easily and a swift headbutt to the face had him flopping bonelessly to the ground.

The couple of other gunmen hiding behind the same car saw Jack and attempted to shoot him with a shotgun and another fired off a weak flame attack. Both attacks hit him in the chest, absorbed by his armour, he barely stumbled back before surging forward. He grabbed one of them one handed by the face and poured a liberal amount of lightning into his hand before putting the gunman's head through a car window.

At that point it seemed the fight had left the last gunman Jack had in his sights, he stared at Jack like a frightened rabbit for a moment, sitting on his backside, trembling. Then Jack noticed a cloth band tied around the gunman’s left arm, it had the familiar four colours and strange sigils of the terrorist group known as the Cult of Four.

When Jack didn’t make a move, simply looming over him, the gunman scrambled to his feet and attempted to flee. That was when the police finally arrived, as he was running, the last gunman was tackled to the ground by one of the strange riot armoured police that apparently practised cultivation.

The policeman wrestled with the gunman briefly before other police arrived and helped put him in a set of thick handcuffs, looking more like a set of mediaeval manacles. One of the police withdrew a syringe from a vest pocket and roughly injected it into the still struggling gunman, his struggles grew weaker and weaker before he eventually seemed to pass out.

More armoured police arrived and spread out amongst the scene, detaining the human gunmen. Meanwhile the surviving hunters simply stood and looked around in shock. Out of the ten other hunters who’d been ambushed on their way home, only Jack and two others were still alive.

More people began to arrive at the scene of the ambush, more police, more hunters, paramedics and news crews, making the scene hectic with activity. Jack was barely aware of any of it, his vision narrowed on the unconscious cultist laying on the ground in front of him, all other sound faded away. A dull cold anger welled up from within him, trickles of lightning ran up and down his body, he began moving towards the stricken cultist.

The policeman charged with guarding the cultist noticed Jack’s approach and warned him to stay back, he didn’t even see or hear the policeman, automatically shoving him out of the way and lunging for the cultist. Before he could get at the cultist however he felt hands grab his shoulders from behind and an arm slip around his neck. Jack continued to struggle blindly forward, intent only on getting to the cultist, thinking of and seeing nothing else, but the powerful arm around his neck constricted and began cutting off his air.

His vision started to fade and go black, but Jack didn’t care, he could only see his prey in front of him. The arm wrapped around him tighter until Jack knew no more.

****************************************************************************************************

Eventually consciousness slowly began returning, Jack became more aware of various sounds around him, something clicked in his mind and he jerked awake.

“Easy, easy Jack. You’re okay, you’re okay,” a voice sounded to his left.

“Wha? Where?” As he slowly became more cognisant he became more aware of his surroundings. He was laying down in a bed, he also seemed to be strapped down judging from the restriction in his movements, he was in a small grey room that looked like a hospital room. Light was streaming in through some windows to his right and a small television playing on mute was attached to the wall in the upper right corner of the room. He felt terrible, his head was pounding, his entire body ached and his throat felt like it was lined with ground up glass.

After a moment he also noticed someone to his left, he looked over and saw Meredith Shriverston watching him with concern.

“Urgh, where am I? What happened?” He grimaced.

“You’re in the guild medbay, you er…Aunty Cheryl had too erm….knock you out,” Meredith told him hesitantly.

When Jack simply stared at her in confusion Meredith continued. “Do you remember what happened?” she asked.

Jack stared up at the ceiling, his mind still felt fuzzy, he was having trouble piecing together what happened at all. “What happened? Er…we….there was a hunt for orcs right?” he asked her and she smiled, nodding in encouragement. “And..erm…oh.” Suddenly it all started flooding back into his mind, he began to remember what had happened, the Park Estate, the fighting in the supermarket, returning home after the job was done and then….the ambush.

“We were ambushed,” he told her and once again she nodded, smiling sadly. “A bunch of the hunters who were with me got shot and killed and I….er…” he trailed off.

The door to the room opened and Cheryl walked in. “You attempted to take a closer look at one of the ambushers and you accidentally threw one of the arresting police officers ten feet or so out of your way,” she finished for him as she brought a spare seat over from the wall and sat down in it next to his bed, she no longer seemed so relaxed and nonchalant, instead there was a tenseness in her body language. “Not gonna lie, I almost let you ‘take a closer look’.” She put up quotation marks with her fingers. “But, human criminals are out of our jurisdiction Jack, we’ve got to let the police do their jobs, ya know,” Cheryl told them, leaning back and looking at the tv. Meredith stared at her with shock while Jack just sighed.

He attempted to wiggle to get into a more comfortable position before looking at the other two. “Okay, I think I’m calm now. So could someone untie me please?” He wasn’t calm, he was anything but, if anything he was more angry now than ever, and before now he’d been about to commit murder in a blind rage. His fellow hunters had been trapped and gunned down in cold blood by some extremist maniacs after fighting off an orc incursion. But there wasn’t much he could do right now, just let the anger about what happened settle in his stomach and fester, like a normal healthy person.

Cheryl looked over with a look of consideration. “Not yet, we’ve still sort of got some bad news for you,” she told him, now she actually looked nervous, only slightly though.

“Bad news? What happened, did someone else get killed?” He briefly wondered if the other hunters he knew and was friends with had suffered the same fate as too many others had today.

“There weren’t any other ambushes, fortunately. It’s your place,” Cheryl told him before stopping with a grimace.

“My place? In the guild? In the Universe? What about it?” he asked in confusion.

“Your flat…it's kinda been burnt to the ground….so…yeah….”

“My…..flat?...wait WHAT!?” He looked at her with incredulity.

“Yeah, so the report came back and it looked like arson, no propellant was used and it was ruled out as an electrical fire. They think it was intentional, probably because it actually looked like an angry fire cultivator kicked your door down and lit the entire place up. There was also graffiti with symbols of the Cult of Four sprayed all over the outside of the nearby buildings. There was a bunch of stuff about lightning elements, about how they’re all evil and the spawn of monsters, death to sparkers and some such nonsense. Yeah, they really don’t like you do they?”

With a burst of frustrated anger he strained at the restraining straps across his chest, arms and legs. The straps didn’t snap but with a tortured squeal the metal and plastic of the bed partly gave way, bending and ripping.

The sudden exertion however had him gasping for breath and feeling drained of energy. His entire body ached, the left side of his chest where his core was also felt painful, like it was hot and cold at the same time. He collapsed back against the bed with a wince and a tired sigh.

“Wow Jack, your cultivation is coming along nicely I see,” Cheryl nodded, giving him an impressed look. Meredith gave the bed a small shake to see if it was still structurally sound.

He sighed again but had a sudden thought. “What about the other people that lived in the same building as me? Did they get out okay?” he asked in concern, still breathing heavily. It was a small apartment building, it used to be a large old house built decades ago but had since been renovated and converted into small apartments. There were about ten other people living there.

“From what I know of, there were no fatalities. Very few people were home, probably because it was a weekday and those that were in, managed to make it out,” Cheryl assured him. He let out a breath of relief. Meredith helpfully began to undo the restraining straps for him.

“Well damn, now I need to find another place to live,” he remarked mildly.

“Actually, about that, I think the director has some thoughts on that particular matter,” Cheryl told him.

“Director Welts has some thoughts on…where I live?” he asked her sceptically. “What's that got to do with him?”

“I don’t know, but apparently it involves the munchkin here too so…” she shrugged.

“Huh? Me? What's this got to do with me?” Meredith asked. “Is this why I got told to watch him? Er not that I mind, it was fine, I loved it - I mean I didn’t love it, I liked it, er I mean I didn’t hate it, it was er….nevermind.” Her face went red and she stared down at the floor, suddenly very interested in her boots. Jack observed her, nonplussed.

Cheryl meanwhile had been watching this with amusement before speaking again. “I don’t know what Adrian has planned. But he always seems to have something up his sleeve. Plans, schemes and strategies, that's his whole thing. Anyway, when you feel like getting out of bed I want you both to head up to the director's office, your weapons are up there anyway Jack. And with that I’ll be going, still got lots to do. Oh and if you two are gonna screw, don’t take too long okay?” With that she left a gaping Jack and Meredith in a room alone together.

A red faced Meredith took one furtive glance at Jack before getting up and fleeing the room, a second later she came back in again to retrieve her sword spear which was leaning against the wall before exiting the room once more.

Jack on the other hand, slowly clambered out of bed, wincing at the soreness of his muscles which were a result of a combination of exhaustive muscle strain and most likely over use of his element. The lightning element it seemed was particularly unforgiving to the human body.

Once he got to his feet he slowly made his way out of the small medbay room and into the main guild building before wandering upstairs to the director's office. He just caught sight of Meredith as she hurriedly turned a corner ahead of him.

After another tired stretch he lazily made his way up the atrium stairs to the eighth floor and Welt’s office. As he was ascending the stairs he watched the people on the ground floor of the atrium. Normally the atrium had a fairly relaxed and casual atmosphere, people would be busily walking through it to wherever their business took them, others would be hanging around the various seating areas chatting or waiting around, just enjoying the sunlight streaming through the giant glass front of the building. Today however, rather than the usual relaxed chatter filling the space, instead nervous whispering pervaded the area, angry muttering and more than one person weeping and sniffling.

Halfway up the stairs his pager chimed, when he looked at it he saw numerous messages from various hunters and other guild members he’d met, all inquiring if he was still alive. Jack smirked briefly at the dancing skeleton emoji followed by a question mark that Nate had sent him. He walked the rest of the way to Welt’s office whilst replying to as many of the questions about his death and subsequent survival as he could.

Once he finally reached Welt’s office he saw that rather than a set of large impressive closed double doors at the end of a long corridor, the office looked to be a hub of activity. The doors were wide open and people were rushing in and out of it, mainly suit and tie wearing admin staff but also the occasional hunter and police officer too.

Jack walked along the corridor, sidestepping the various busy people and making his way into the office. When he walked in he saw a similar scene to what he’d witnessed in the commandeered farm warehouse when dealing with the orcs in Park Estate.

Groups of admin staff, hunters and police stood here and there, talking to each other and gathered around touchscreens. Jack spotted Meredith by Welts’ desk, facing it and standing next to Cheryl, he headed over to them

When he got closer he saw they were talking to Adrian Welts himself, he still had his ever present smile on his face, but it didn’t reach his eyes, it was more of a sad smile than anything else. When he got near them Welts turned to look at Jack.

“Ah Jack m’boy! I’m glad to see you up and about, are you alright?” he asked with concern.

“Er yeah, I’m fine. I think Cheryl was the one that came closest to killing me today actually.” Jack sent a dry look towards Cheryl who simply shrugged with a lopsided smirk.

“Yes…I’d heard about that….I think your reaction to the….ambush…was perfectly understandable, but we still need to operate within the confines of the law. We’re not vigilantes, we can defend ourselves against human aggression but we certainly can’t er….take the law into our own hands,” Welts lectured him.

“Mm hm, right. So what do you know about the ambush then? Was it them? The Cult of Four? Why did they attack us? What do they want?” Jack fired off question after question, he didn’t really expect any answer Welts could give him would satisfy him, but maybe Welts might say something that could help Jack to make sense of it all.

Welts sighed tiredly. “The cult, yes it was the Cult of Four, it's been confirmed. As to why, why did they do it? What do they want? We still don’t know that yet, we don’t even know how they were able to gain the orc’s cooperation, instead of being killed and eaten.” Welts shook his head helplessly.

“Okay, but I don’t suppose you know why they seem to have a hard on for me do you? They burnt my place down and during the ambush I think they recognised me, called me the abomination and seemed to make a special effort to kill me,” Jack said, not that he was concerned, if anything he actually wanted these guys to come after him now, the more the merrier.

“Now that I can answer, the police and homeland intelligence services are required to provide the guild with any information pertaining to our hunters with regards to criminal groups operating in the UK or abroad. For instance that means if one of our hunters is involved in organised criminal activity or is being targeted by organised crime then we are informed. So as you know, MI5 have been investigating this terrorist group, as they uncovered more information they heard the odd piece of info about you now and then,” Welts explained.

“Me? Okay then, what about me?”

“Well, the various pieces of information are a little confused and don’t all match up. I think someone within the cult is trying to sell a certain narrative but when it gets disseminated throughout the cult it must get mistranslated or misinterpreted,” Welts began.

“What? Like Chinese whispers?”

“Quite, anyway, from what I’m able to gather, the Cult of Four is only the Cult of Four because the original four leaders were never able to find a fifth, and by a fifth I mean a wielder of the lightning element. From the sounds of it, these four leaders are making themselves out to be the Messiahs, almost like living deities, about to lead the people to a bright and shining utopian future, they seem to be very persuasive somehow, cultists who’ve been captured and interrogated by MI5 are devout and fanatical in their belief in their leaders. But in the beginning some people in their little cult were beginning to question why there were only four of them when everyone knew there were actually five elements, and if these fellows were so smart and powerful and all knowing, then why couldn’t they find their fifth member? So I think what happened was that instead of admitting they were fallible and didn’t know where any successful lightning cultivator could be found, let alone a strong one, they simply went with the narrative that all lightning cultivators were weak, evil and unworthy and of course they would never allow one to be amongst the leaders of the cult. But then out of nowhere you popped up and made some cultists start questioning things again.”

“Hm, I did pop out of nowhere didn’t I, it's one of my special skills,” Jack remarked.

“Indeed, anyway there are rumours flying around about a splinter group within the cult that believe at the very least that the four leaders are mistaken and that you in fact, are the missing fifth leader of the cult,” Welts told him, watching him carefully.

“Me!? Well fuck that! I don’t want anything to do with those crazy scumbags. At this point I’m more inclined towards the shoot first ask questions whenever I get around to it attitude,” Jack felt revolted, it was the truth, he genuinely felt disgusted at the thought of any of those deluded creeps looking up to him.

“I never had any doubt.” Welts smiled warmly at him, looking ever so slightly relieved.

“Mm, if one of them comes up to me, I’ll ask him which type of cultist he is only after I’ve put my boot on his neck, I’ll see if he still wants to be friends after that,” Jack viciously remarked, clenching his fists.

“Right on!” Cheryl cried out from the sidelines and several other people murmured appreciatively in support throughout the room. The appreciative murmurings seemed genuine but he couldn’t tell if Cheryl was actually supporting him or simply egging him on and encouraging his violent side as she so often seemed to do in their conversations together.

“Ah yes, indeed. Well, in any case I’m sure both you and Miss Shriverston here are wondering why I called you here today.” Welts looked at both Jack and Meredith with an expectant look.

Jack shrugged and Meredith put on a polite smile.

“Right, well then…the two of you have apparently become persons of interest to the Cult of Four, Jack for the reasons discussed earlier and Meredith because you foiled several of their plots in the past,” Welts explained. At that Jack turned to Meredith with a curious look, she simply smiled in embarrassment. “It also doesn’t help that your mother is Imogen Shriverston.” Meredith’s smile fled her face. “According to the latest intel the guild has been provided, there will be future attempts on both your lives.”

Jack felt a thrill of anticipation at that, let them come he thought. A small smile crept its way onto his face.

Welts gave him a brief glance before continuing. “The both of you are valuable guild assets and as ironic as this sounds we don't want either of you to be put in undue danger, or at least we don’t want you two to be dodging assassination attempts whilst doing your jobs. There is also the concern that…other hunters might be caught up in any attempts on your life.” That made Jack think twice, obviously he didn't want others to be hurt because of him, at least not his friends anyway, he wasn’t overly fussed about random people he hadn’t met. Plus there was also the fact that the cult was perfectly willing to fight dirty by bringing some sort of ultra high calibre, armour piercing, tank-killing, elephant gun to the party.

“So with that in mind I thought it best to put you both out of sight and out of reach for the time being until this business with the cult dies down,” Welts told them happily.

“Out of sight? Where? Somewhere abroad? Oh! Are you sending us to Paris?” Meredith asked with sudden excitement.

“Er no I’m afraid not,” he told her regretfully, Meredith’s happy excited smile dropped again. “Erm no, it's a bit unconventional but we’ll be sending you both to an isolated outpost of your choice,” he told them before looking down at a touchpad and scrolling through it. “Er lets see here, your options are Rosedale Abbey, Egton, Kirkby annnnnd the Dire Woods, we wouldn’t normally suggest the Dire Woods but they’re really desperate for people at the moment.”

Jack felt his mouth drop open. The Dire Woods!? That place was definitely on his bucket list!

“Seriously!? The Dire Woods obviously! This is great! When are we going?” Jack asked enthusiastically, Meredith also looked excited, clearly Paris was already forgotten.

“Ah yes, I thought you might say that, and as I said that wouldn’t normally be an option for you in particular Jack but they need all the personnel they can get. We’ve also been receiving frequent requests from various organisations centred around your ability to attune whole monster corpses that would call for you to enter the woods. That would generate significant revenue for the guild so many of the guild execs are supportive of that idea,” he said, sounding uncomfortable. Cheryl also snorted derisively in the background which made it clear that she wasn’t one of the execs that supported the idea.

“Well anyway, there is still something you need to do first. You need to rank up Jack and I know Meredith wants to get up to rank B to lead her own team into the Dire Woods, so I thought why not kill four birds with one stone. I’m sending the both of you on a joint promotion job, Meredith will lead and Jack will be her support. If you complete the job you’ll both go up a rank, then you can go to the Dire Woods outpost,” Welts explained.

“Hey, you said four birds, that was only like…three, we both rank up and go to the ‘murder forest’, that's three right?” Jack pointed out.

“Er yes, the other bird, so to speak, is the location you’ll be going for your promotion job. You see, the orc hunt you participated in earlier today uncovered some rather interesting finds.” Welts stepped to the said and revealed behind him on his desk, a large box, he opened it up and took out something familiar. Jack remembered seeing it from before, it was the basketball sized round steel cage like apparatus with the red glow emanating from within. One of the orc elemental users had used it to roast several hunters before it was put down.

The cage bars looked like rough black iron strips beaten into shape and welded closed, whatever it was it looked very crude and improvised. However, now that he had a closer look, Jack could see that various symbols and other script had been carved into the metal, almost covering it; it looked similar to what he'd seen during the hunt for the Red Caps.

“Is that a fire crystal inside?” Meredith asked.

“Indeed it is, and that’s the job. You see, this device we acquired from the orc hunt actually seems to have a direct effect on the crystal inside, allowing fine control and great amplification of the elemental effects, far more so than any currently known crystal smelting and forging methods. It also appears to have some other interesting properties too. And it seems to have something to do with these runic symbols inscribed onto the metal itself. We’re not aware of any other finds like this so as you can imagine this has generated immense interest in London, which is where this device will be going later today along with other similar items recovered from today.” Meredith and Jack nodded along, intrigued as Welts put the device back in the box.

“As for what I want from the two of you, along with a surge of interest in all things runes, there is also an increased interest in elemental crystals. Now, we can get earth, water and wind crystals relatively easily, but fire crystals in this country are a little harder to come by. There are specific locations where they’re found, most of which are rather perilous, and that's where you come in, I’m sending you both, with an assessor of course, to Tan Hill Coal mine.” Welts looked nervous for a moment as Cheryl stepped forward with a smirk

“You’ll be with me kiddo’s, I’m your momma now,” the full tooth cheshire cat grin she graced them with was decidedly unmotherly.

“You know you’re only like five years older than me,” Jack pointed out but she waved her hand dismissively at him

“So…Tan Hill, that's a coal mine, and there are fire crystals there?” Meredith questioned.

“That's right, in fact it's now become a dungeon, before the great change it was a working coal mine until the nineteen thirties when it was shut down. Now however, it has since developed into a dungeon. Actually, quite recently the guild has made an official distinction between dungeons like Tan Hill and others like the Manchester city centre dungeon, isn’t that right Cheryl?” Welts looked over to Cheryl inquiringly.

“Hm? Oh right, yeah. Dungeons like Tan Hill or the old abandoned York hospital came into being by manifesting inside already existing structures, already existing buildings and caves, tunnels and the like, though they still make extra dimensional changes, adding extra spaces, making various areas bigger on the inside than they appear on the inside, stuff like that. Dungeons like that are now called ‘host’ dungeons, cause they inhabit a pre-existing structure. Then there’s dungeons like Clifford’s Hill or Manchester city centre, they developed structures and areas where before there was nothing at all, we named those types of dungeons ‘builders’,” she explained, beginning to sound bored halfway through the explanation.

At Jack and Meredith’s sceptical looks she sighed in mild exasperation.

“I….was part of the meeting that decided on the naming system, but we’d been at it for hours and nothing was getting decided so I just got up and walked out, told them to just go with whatever the last suggestion was.” She shrugged.

There was an awkward silence punctuated by Jack and Meredith’s stifled sniggers before Welts took charge once more.

“Er…right! Well then, Jack, Meredith, I want you two to take the weekend to rest. Then on monday you’ll go with Cheryl to Tan Hill, once there I want you to harvest a minimum of twenty fire crystals, obviously we’ll pay you more for a greater amount and higher quality but twenty low rank crystals is the absolute minimum amount for a successful job completion,” he told them firmly and professionally.

Shortly after that, Jack and Meredith were both ushered out of the office after they’d agreed to the job. Welts handed Jack his weapon harness and kit with a smile and a pat on the back.

As they walked out Jack noticed one of the house plants that took up space in various parts of Welts’ office. He was suddenly reminded of a very expensive lamp/houseplant of his own that no doubt was nothing but ashes at this point.

A small wave of exasperated grief overtook for a moment and he sagged, letting out a pathetic ragged sigh.

“Erm, are you okay?” Meredith asked him in concern.

He looked at her sadly. “No…no I’m not, those cultists owe me a really expensive houseplant.” He continued walking out of the office with an air of depression while a confused Meredith followed behind him.