Chapter 30

Jack allowed the inky blackness of the entrance to immerse him as he walked forward before emerging into the dungeon. Before he’d even opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was the heat, it was stifling, almost suffocating. He opened his eyes a moment later and looked around.

They had emerged into a rocky tunnel that led downwards, it was dark with the only light source being an orange red glow coming from further down the tunnel. The next thing he noticed were the sounds and smells, it smelled of smoke, of burning wood and coal, and coming from further down the tunnel was a dull roar and crackling of burning fires.

He coughed lightly as he breathed in a wisp of smoke, his helmet visor was still up. Meredith stood next to him, she didn’t cough but she looked as uncomfortable as he felt. Overall Jack felt like he’d stepped into the entrance of a large, dirty, smoky furnace that someone had just lit.

“Welcome to Tan Hill dungeon kiddo’s,” Cheryl chirped out cheerfully. She looked entirely at ease and unaffected by their environment whereas Jack felt like stripping off all his armour and asking Meredith to hose him down.

“Urgh,” was all the response Jack felt like mustering and Meredith mirrored him at the same time.

“Oh don’t be like that, I know it's hot so I came prepared.” She reached behind her to a small pack hanging from her belt, from the pack she pulled out a small plastic jar. After opening the jar shook it slightly with a rattle until three small silvery pills came out into her other hand. She took one and swallowed it before offering the other two to Jack and Meredith. “Go ahead and swallow ‘em, you’ll feel better. Trust me.”

After a dubious look, Jack took a pill and swallowed it. At first he felt nothing, but then a moment later he felt a wave of cold rush over him. It sort of felt uncomfortable, like someone walking over his grave, he shivered briefly but then it settled and he felt neither hot nor cold. It was an odd feeling, he knew instinctively that he should be sweltering right now in this environment, but his temperature felt perfect, like he was walking through a park on a spring day.

“What was that stuff aunty?” Meredith questioned with a trace amount of wonder in her voice.

“Those things, my adorable little niece, are called cryonic homeostasis pills, produced by a new pharmaceutical company called Magicae Bio. The pills regulate the internal temperature of the human body when it's exposed to extreme high temperatures,” she explained smugly. “They’re not technically out on the market just yet, but I managed to snag some a month early, they're a part of a new line of drugs based on harvested monster and magical ingredients.”

“So….these are chill pills then?” Jack asked with a smirk.

“They’re….huh, I suppose they are chill pills aren’t they? Hah!” Cheryl laughed and Meredith giggled.

Once they were done laughing Cheryl became serious again. “Okay, so now we’re here I should probably tell you what we’ll be facing. Probably should’ve told you while we were outside at the cafe but whatever. So Tan Hill dungeon, as you know it used to be a coal mine before it was shut down ages ago. It seems as if there was still plenty of coal left because once it became a dungeon, it hasn’t stopped burning. Down there we’ll find a hell of a lot of coal fires, parts of the ceiling, parts of the walls, even the ground in places will be on fire. Normally a human wouldn’t be able to go down there without a gas mask, but we should be fine, Jack’s got one already and I know you can use the water filtration technique I taught you Meredith,” she said to Meredith who nodded in determination. “Besides, a little smoke in the lungs isn’t as much of a big deal for cultivators.”

“What sort of monsters will we find down there?” Jack asked.

“Well, as you can imagine, there'll be a lot of monsters that are either resistant to the heat or thrive in it. Meredith your abilities will be the most useful here, Jack you might find your lightning element to not be so effective, so stick to that thing you do with the metal balls and your axe and spear. Just remember I'm only your assessor, it's all up to you two, if I have to step in then you fail. Then you can kiss the Dire Woods goodbye,” she told them. They nodded along, determined not to fail.

“Okay! Let's do this!” With that she led them downwards through the rocky tunnel, the sound of roaring and crackling fire grew louder.

They walked along the rough tunnel, it took them downwards at a slight decline, the sound of the fires grew louder and the light grew stronger. Eventually they emerged into a large cavernous open space. They looked out into a fiery expanse of dirty smoke, smouldering patches of fire, boulders and stalagmites. It looked like a hellscape. At the edges of the cavern, several entrances to other tunnels could be seen.

Jack snapped his visor down before he could inhale anymore smoke. Both Cheryl and Meredith conjured small balls of water and placed them over their mouths and noses where they stayed put.

“Is that the water filtration method you mentioned earlier Cheryl? Can you breathe through the water?” he asked, his voice a little muffled and distorted by his visor.

Cheryl used a hand to push away the water ball covering her mouth like she was pushing aside a mask. “Yup, its handy technique, takes a little finesse though. It basically acts like your gas mask there, it filters out everything except clean air. Me and Imogen came up with it a couple of years ago,” she explained smugly.

“You guys coming?” Meredith called out. She’d already started heading into the cavern, Jack hurried to catch up with Cheryl following along in a relaxed fashion.

They wandered through the cavern for several minutes. Jack was content to let Meredith lead the way as it seemed she had a purpose or specific destination in mind, he didn’t bother to ask what it was she was looking for. Eventually she stopped next to a large wide stalagmite jutting up out the ground, she knelt down next to it and silently beckoned to Jack and Cheryl.

Meredith peeked around the stalagmite before turning back to the other two. She peeled away her water mask.

“A Fire Drake, it's pretty big but it might drop something valuable if we kill it. You up for it Jack?” she asked him. Before responding he crawled past her and took a quick peek himself. It was big, that was his first thought. And ugly, that was his second.

It looked like a massive quadrupedal reptile, similar to a Monitor lizard in shape, it had a long body and tail that measured around thirty metres long from tail tip to snout. Its rough scales seemed to be a mixture of brown and red, though it was difficult to tell given the only light sources were various scattered coal fires. Its head, neck and tail were elongated and covered in short spiked bony protrusions.

Currently the Drake was coiled up around a large boulder, rubbing the side of its horned head against the rocky surface, large amounts of sparks flew out from the boulder with every grind. Smoke trailed out of its nostrils and mouth.

Jack withdrew back around the stalagmite.

“I’ve never fought one of those before, but I’m up for it if you are,” he told Meredith. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a pill for that thing do ya?” he asked Cheryl with a smirk.

“There’s a first time for everything Jack,” Cheryl remarked from where she was leaning. “And no, I don’t.”

He shrugged. “When you say Fire Drake, do you mean that literally? Is that thing gonna breathe fire at us? I don’t mind if it does, I won’t hold it against it. Just want to be prepared, ya know.” He looked at Meredith.

She looked back at him for a few seconds in amusement for a moment before answering. “Um, I’ve only ever fought one before. They can breath out incredibly hot breath attacks which will cook you all the same,” she told him.

“So it's got bad breath, gotcha. Avoid any pointy bits, avoid any orifices, pretty much business as usual then. You ready?” he asked and she nodded, gripping her sword spear tightly.

“It's fast and strong but try to focus your attacks on its underbelly, that's where its scales are the weakest,” she told him.

With that they stood up and stepped around the stalagmite. The Drake didn’t notice them immediately. The two hunters separated, Jack walked to the left and Meredith walked to the right. He took out a handful of steel marbles and waited for Meredith to make the first move, ladies first after all.

He didn’t have to wait long as she started the fight with a salvo of large pressurised balls of water in rapid succession, flying in at the Drake with tremendous speed. It might’ve just been water, but when water is flying at you or you are flying at the water upwards of a hundred miles an hour, it's like being hit with solid stone.

The Drake was hit in the face and chest and sent careening past the boulder it was curled up against, it let out an indignant roar of surprise and rage. As it tried to right itself with an enraged hiss, Jack unleashed his attack, sending a handful of steel marbles ripping into the beast’s flanks powered by a strong pulse of electromagnetism. Multi Coloured vapour gushed from its sides, the beast squealed in pain, but before Jack and Meredith were able to get any more attacks in it quickly got to its feet and charged towards them with a roar, smoke and sparks emanated from its mouth.

It headed straight for Meredith but then rapidly shifted to the side, its long tail whipped towards her, instead of trying to dodge she jabbed the point of her spear sword into the ground and held it there perpendicular. The tail crashed into the sword spear, Meredith was knocked back but only by a couple of feet, before the reptile could recover Meredith lashed out with the blade of her sword spear several times almost faster than Jack could follow. She lopped off its tail about halfway from its base, the Drake squealed and hissed in pain once more and instinctively sideways scrambled away from Meredith directly towards Jack.

The Drake was still looking towards Meredith so Jack used its distraction to his advantage, he unsheathed the spear with the exploding spear head and immediately extended it to two metres long. He charged towards the beast and aimed the spear head at its cream white underbelly, once he got in range he pressed the final extension button and thrust forwards at the same time. The spear tip sunk deeply into the monster and a moment later Jack pulled the ignition trigger.

A muffled explosive crump sounded from within the beast's innards. There was no recoil from the spear but Jack could tell massive damage had been done. The Fire Drake’s enraged hisses and squeals of pain turned into strangled hisses, instead of smoke and sparks flying from its mouth, multicoloured light and vapour were vomited out. Jack himself was engulfed in the stuff from the grievous wound he’d dealt, he lost sight of his surroundings for a few moments before the light and vapour finally cleared up.

When he regained his vision, he was treated to the sight of Cheryl and Meredith staring at him in shock. The Drake itself looked well and truly dead, it was lying stretched out across the ground, completely unmoving.

Jack looked appreciatively at his spear.

“Wow, Gary really came through with this thing,” he murmured to himself as he ejected the spent casing out of the spear head and caught it before it hit the ground.

“What kind of weapon is that Jack?” Meredith spoke up in slight wonder as she looked covetously at the weapon in his hands.

“This? The exploding spear, pretty good eh?” He grinned at them. Cheryl snatched it out of his hands and proceeded to examine it closely.

“You got this from Gary right?” she asked and Jack nodded.

“Who’s Gary?” Meredith questioned.

“He’s this crazy weapon and armour smith on the highstreet Jack uses, Jack supplies him with rare and expensive materials and in return Gary gives him high quality and experimental weapons. Like this.” Cheryl held up the spear and thumbed one of the buttons along the haft, the spear retracted to its smaller form of three feet in length.

“Whoa! That's so cool, you were carrying a spear around all this time on your back! I just thought you had another short sword as a backup. Oh wow, where’s Gary located? Do you think he’ll make something for me?” Meredith asked and with a smile Jack told her.

While they were talking the corpse of the massive Fire Drake had dissolved within a few minutes, reabsorbed by the dungeon. In its place was a large white bone, about two metres long and half a foot thick.

“Is that a bone from the Drake? What are we supposed to do with this?” Jack asked, kicking in slightly with his boot.

“Carry it?” Cheryl quipped.

“We should be able to sell it for a decent price, it's a strong material so it can be used in lots of different industries when it's been rendered down, I think,” Meredith said as she looked at it.

“Really? So who’s going to carry it?” Jack asked sceptically. When no one answered and avoided looking at him, he began to wonder if the dungeon had done this on purpose, since if no one claimed the loot then the dungeon could just reabsorb it. Rather than allow the dungeon the satisfaction, he bent down and picked up the giant bone with a grunt, it was heavier than it looked.

“Oo, such a gentleman! It's a good thing we’ve got a big strong man here to protect us and carry heavy things!” Cheryl mocked, pretending to swoon while wafting her face with a hand.

“I’ll throw this thing at you,” he threatened her but she just laughed. Meanwhile, Meredith was kneeling down by the massive boulder the Fire Drake had been rubbing its head against. A short while later she returned to the pair with a small container.

“Whatcha got there munchkin?” Cheryl asked her.

In response Meredith smiled smugly and showed them a small box that looked like it was made of metal and ceramic, she opened it up for them. Jack peered in and saw several small orange red glowing stones about half the size of the palm of his hand, they had a strange shape, they were jagged and spiky in places but smooth and flowing in other places.

“Fire crystals, a bit on the lower rank but they still count right?” Meredith smiled happily.

“Yup, you got five there, another fifteen to go. Shall we?” Cheryl cocked her head and Meredith walked past her, leading the way once again.

They exited the large cavern after finding no other clutches of fire crystal apart from the occasional monster. As they walked Jack tapped Meredith on the shoulder.

“Are you able to sense bodies of water like Cheryl? Is that how you found the Fire Drake?” he asked her.

“Hm? Aunt Cheryl told you about that? Erm yeah, I can do that, my mother taught me actually, she wanted me to be able to scout stuff more easily and join the surveyor corp,” she told him.

“There’s a spot open for you if you want it kiddo,” Cheryl spoke up from the back. Meredith ignored her.

“How do you do it? What's the technique?” he asked in curiosity.

Meredith paused in thought for a moment as they continued traversing the rocky terrain of the cavern. “Hm…it's difficult to put into words, but I just sort of tap into my core and sense trace amounts of water in the air around me, it's like I can hear it, feel it and taste it on my skin all at the same time. It’s like a sixth sense, it's hard to describe, probably because there aren’t any words in the English language for I guess,” she tried to explain with a shrug.

“Why the interest Jack?” Cheryl spoke up again.

He shrugged himself. “Just wondering, I know someone else who can do something similar with the wind element, plus I was wondering if I could develop an ability like that too.” He shrugged again.

“You?” Cheryl questioned with scepticism.

“Yeah me, why not? You sense the water in living things, well most other living things also contain electrochemical systems, so why shouldn’t I be able to sense that?” he reasoned.

“Hmm, that's a fair point, I’d be interested to see if you could do it actually, it’s definitely a useful skill. Anyway, you mentioned a wind element who can use their element to scout? Mind giving me their contact info?” Cheryl smiled sweetly at him as they continued walking.

They moved on from the cavern and entered one of the tunnels leading off from it. It was very dim, lit only by the light coming from the cavern and several smoking vents spewing out smoke and smouldering red light. At the far end they could see a pinprick of light, indicating the end of the tunnel.

As they walked along, all seemed fine, but then suddenly one of the vents began to make a loud hissing whooshing noise as Meredith walked past it. She was enveloped in a black greasy smoke-like substance rushing upwards out of the rocky vent. Jack lost sight of her but before he could begin to worry, great gouts of water jetted out from the smoke, raking through it. The smoke quivered and writhed before trying to flow away back into the vent, however it seemed Meredith wasn’t willing to let it go as she grabbed the strange substance with one hand and blasted it with water.

After a few blasts of water the smoke-like substance dissolved into a black sticky tar, puddling around her feet. Jack and Cheryl hurriedly caught up with her, Meredith was busy washing her blackened face with a handful of conjured water, looking very irritated.

“That hair’s gonna need some shampoo on it later, I don’t know why you keep it so long,” Cheryl remarked with a smirk. Meredith simply gave her an irritated look and a sneeze before continuing to scrub her face.

“What was that?” Jack asked.

“We call it a Smoke Stack, we never see them outside dungeons so we’re not sure if it's a monster or just a trap commonly used by dungeons,” Cheryl explained.

After Meredith had finished her abutions, she continued to lead them through the tunnel. A few minutes later they emerged into a smaller cavern about the size of a gymnasium, after a small dip down a rocky incline the ground was relatively flat, around the edges of the cavern were various seams of coal ablaze providing light and a suitable fiery, smokey, dirty ambience.

“Ooh, paydirt!” Cheryl exclaimed from behind them. At first Jack didn’t know what she was referring to, but then he noticed that parts of the rocky ground appeared to be shifting and moving around. After a further inspection he saw small piles of rocks in various shapes and sizes moving around aimlessly across the ground.

“Are those…Golems?” asked Meredith.

“They are yes, they’re juveniles but they should have some valuables hidden inside, maybe even a few fire crystals, notice how a lot of them have black shiny patches? That's anthracite, a form of coal. I can also see a few patches of fire crystals around the edges of the room too, looks like this is it. I’ll watch from up here then, have fun.” Cheryl squatted down and looked at them expectantly

Meredith and Jack looked at each other before shrugging and sliding down the short slope. The golem nearest them was about the size of a grown man, though it more resembled a large lump of rock with short uneven legs and a couple of other random appendages, supposedly they got more impressive as they got older. It still appeared to be in its awkward teenage years. Still, however animated, it remained a piece of solid stone and he didn’t really know the best way to take one down, not really wanting to damage his weapons by striking the bladed edges against solid stone.

He turned to Meredith. “So how do you want to - ?” He stopped talking however when Meredith marched forwards towards the golem. It was currently just ambling around, unaware or uncaring of the two hunters standing several metres away from it.

“YAAH!” She punched the golem with her right fist and half of it just gave way, splintering into fragments of stone, coal and other bits and pieces. The golem staggered to the side and Meredith finished it off with a vicious kick from a booted foot.

The rest of the golems took note of the demise of one of their compatriots and began walking, ambling, shuffling, rolling or galloping towards them. Meredith unleashed a concentrated pressurised blast of water, raking it over the incoming golems before running forward to meet them with her bare fists, her sword spear left embedded in the ground behind her.

Not one to be left out or left behind, Jack hurriedly grabbed handfuls of steel marbles from the pouches on his belt and let rip into the mass of rock charging towards them with several throws of entire handfuls. He dealt a satisfying amount of damage, with several of the amalgamations of rock being blasted apart and more losing parts of their bodies. However before he could get too many attacks off, a smaller golem about the size and very roughly the shape of a large bounded towards him.

He grabbed it as it leapt onto him and quickly fell onto his back with its immense weight pressing down into him. He tried to electrocute it but that didn’t seem to do any good at all, it had no nervous system or muscles to paralyse, it was just animated rock. The golem’s head came down and battered against his helmet, the metal held firm but his head was now ringing.

In desperation he took a leaf out of Meredith’s book and tried to blunt force trauma his way out of his predicament. He held onto what passed for the creature's head and pulled, with some resistance it came off, however the beast wasn’t done, in fact it didn’t even seem to notice as it kept on trying to maul him.

Jack took the large rock which may or may not have been the golem’s head and proceeded to use it to bludgeon the golem. It worked, large slivers and fragments of rock flew away from the beast with each hit until it collapsed into a broken pile of twitching stone.

He proudly looked up from his kill and saw Meredith was surrounded by several similar piles and working on adding another kill to her tally.

He grunted in frustration, another golem drew close, he attempted to punch it like he’d seen Meredith do but succeeded in doing very little damage at all, except to his hand. It was like punch solid metal, nevermind rock. But then he saw it, jutting out from beneath the rocky exterior of the golem facing him, a shard of jagged metal, he grabbed onto the golem as it tried to attack with a swing of one of its appendages and sent a magnetic field into the beast. The golem juddered and twitched, Jack attacked again, randomly sending magnetic fields of repulsion and attraction into it. The golem couldn’t react or coordinate with itself, bits and pieces of it began to break off until eventually Jack was standing over another pile of now inanimate rock.

He heard Cheryl whistle in appreciation. “Point for creativity Jack! I didn’t know you could do that! But you're still lagging behind the munchkin!”

He looked over and saw Meredith balanced on top of one of the larger golems, she had the tip of her sword spear jammed into a crack and was slowly pushing it in. The golem slowly and clumsily flailed around, trying to reach her, but with a grunt of exertion she sunk her spear blade all the way in and the golem collapsed into a heap.

There was a large group surrounding Meredith who seemed to have drawn most of the monster group’s aggression, whereas Jack was busy dealing with the outliers scattered throughout the room.

He used his newfound tactic of using chaotic random fields of magnetic energy, pulsing them into any golem that got close. It was more effective on some than others, the very last golem he faced, which was the size of a bear, shrugged off his magnetic assaults and he was forced to use up the last of his steel marbles at close range in order to finally vanquish it. However, just before it crumbled into a rocky pile, it got one solid blow in that sent him flying, landing in a heap at Meredith’s feet.

She looked down at him with a bemused smile but before she could say anything she was interrupted by Cheryl.

“Good footwork munchkin! Not bad at all!” she spoke out to Meredith as she slid down the short rocky slope and approached them.

“And Jack! That was…..interesting, what were you actually doing to them to make them freeze and jerk around like that?” she questioned him as Jack got to his feet.

“Um, I was throwing in mixes of different magnetic fields in there, I noticed the golems seemed to have some metal in them, so I thought I’d give that a try,” he explained.

“Hmm, I thought that might be the case, though I noticed one or two that didn’t seem too affected by that technique. Why do you think that was?” Again she seemed like a teacher asking a student a question when she already knew the answer.

“Ah well, not all metals are magnetic. Actually I think only iron, cobalt and nickel are, plus maybe one or two others, so some golems must not have had much of those metals in them, that's probably why it didn’t work on them.” He shrugged, not too bothered since he’d discovered something new about his abilities which always intrigued him and magnetic metals were fairly common anyway.

With that, the battle was finished and it was up to Jack and Meredith to comb over what was left to see if the golems had dropped anything of value when the dungeon reabsorbed them. Jack was sceptical, having rarely seen a dungeon be particularly generous in terms of dropped loot, but this time he was pleasantly surprised. The golems dropped entire pounds worth of rare metals, precious gems, magical minerals and even a couple of mid ranking fire crystals. A decent haul by any means, after they were done picking up the loot, they searched around the edges of the small cavern and multiple clusters of fire crystals, just begging to be mined.

They set to work and in the end they managed to come up with a grand total of thirty one low rank fire crystals and three mid ranked ones. Jack singed his fingers on the mid ranked crystals, learning that the more potent elemental crystals actually exhibited physical effects on whatever they touched.

As they were gathering together their loot, Jack noticed a large stone door at the far end of the small cavern from where they’d entered. He hadn’t noticed it before because it was made of the same material as the rough stone wall and almost indistinguishable, but now he looked closer, he could faintly see traces of runic script lining the wall above the doorway in an arch. He walked over to take a closer look and saw more runes scrawled across the actual doors in small, neat, dense lines, almost covering the entire door.

“What have you got Jack?” Meredith asked from behind, following him.

“Something….interesting,” he murmured.

“Hm? What's up you two?” Cheryl joined them.

She then noticed the runic script. “Oh, now that is interesting,” she said, sounding very intrigued as she got out her pager and took several pictures. Jack also did the same.

“Are we going in?” Meredith asked, approaching the door, looking back at them. Cheryl hesitated for a moment before nodding.

“Yeah, let's see what’s behind door number one,” she said, Meredith pushed open the stone doors which grinded open with a rumble.

It was dark at first, but then slowly light began to fill the chamber as they stepped into it. Small alcoves carved into rough rocky walls filled with fire revealing another large rocky cavern, the chamber was bare and empty except for one occupant in the middle of the room.

“Oh shit, time to go,” Cheryl said grimly as she turned around and began to push Jack and Meredith back through the stone doors. However the doors suddenly shut with a small boom that echoed throughout the chamber.

The lone occupant clearly heard the doors shut as it began to stir. As Cheryl turned back around, Jack got a look at what was making her so nervous, or at least more tense, Cheryl didn’t really seem to get nervous.

It was humanoid, with grey brown skin, it was kneeling down but even kneeling down he could tell it was big, at least five metres tall and bedecked in muscle. It was naked except for a loincloth. Although it was humanoid in shape, any similarities to humans were overwhelmed by the strangeness, the danger and savagery emanating from it. Its head had nothing in common with a human, it looked more like a demon, with a rough craggy grey noseless face and a giant mouth filled with elongated fangs. It also had two horns jutting up from either side of its head with one horn being twice as large as the other. Interestingly, half of its face was covered by a ragged looking blindfold, which looked to be covered in some form of writing or runic script. Despite the blindfold, Jack didn’t think for one second it couldn’t perceive them perfectly well.

The creature got to its feet and stood at its full towering height, as it got up it dragged the tip of an enormous sword along the ground. The blade looked close to four metres long and was one gigantic wedge shape with serrated edges. As it stood in the middle of the room, it faced them and let out a growl that reverberated throughout the small cavern, Jack felt it in his bones. The creature opened its mouth and a long thin tentacle-like tongue emerged, like it was tasting the air.

“Umm, I’m not getting good vibes from that thing,” Jack remarked nervously.

“Okay you two, the promotion jobs over, you passed. Congrats. Now I want you both to stay back and support me with ranged attacks only,” Cheryl instructed them firmly as she stepped forward and cracked neck to the side.

“What is that thing?” Meredith questioned, slightly nervous.

“It's called a Fiend, otherwise known as a fire demon, and it shouldn’t be here. This dungeon isn't powerful enough to produce one. Shit! No time to talk about it now! Scatter!” Cheryl cried out as the demon levelled a large grey palm at them and unleashed a massive screaming gout of flame.

Jack dodged and sprinted to the left while Cheryl and Meredith went right. They got away in time but Jack still felt the searing heat from the powerful fire attack blister the skin on the back of his legs. He and Meredith were now on opposite sides of the chamber while Cheryl was moving in, the beast took note of her with a seemingly contemptuous snort and moved in to meet up.

It raised its giant sword one handed and brought it down, Cheryl dodged with ease and the sword splintered the ground, sending up splinters or stone and fat sparks. Cheryl countered by hammering the side of its face with a large block of ice, normally that would’ve been a killing blow but it just sent the Fiend stumbling to the side for a few steps.

It growled at her before taking a sideways swipe with its sword, accompanied by a sweeping blast of flame. Again Cheryl dodged, she ducked under its attack and sent counter by way of a ball of water blasting into its face. The Fiend took no note of the water and went full on the offensive, rapidly and wildly swinging its sword at Cheryl who simply dodged and sent in the occasional counter.

Jack and Meredith desperately tried to help from the sidelines by sending in powerful blasts of water and lightning at the beast but it didn’t take any note. Even when Jack took the time to concentrate and send in a fully powered lightning bolt as opposed to his usual quick bolt, it barely phased the beast. He didn’t dare try to take a shot with his railgun ability, it was still far too inaccurate and he didn’t want to hit Cheryl.

Both combatants were moving at phenomenal speeds, almost faster than Jack or Meredith could follow. Jack was forced to shift a little lightning energy into his brain so he could still see what was happening. With every swing of its blade and every fire attack, the monster filled up the space with smoke and sparks, bathing both combatants in it.

Meanwhile, Cheryl continued to gracefully and elegantly dodge each and every attack the beast sent at her, her face no longer looked quite so relaxed but instead it was one of concentration. However, she didn’t seem nervous or worried, in fact, there was a trace of a smirk pulling at the corners of her mouth.

Immediately surrounding the two, glittering white mist had been forming in increasing quantities since the fight began.

After a while it looked like the demon was getting annoyed, its attacks became more wild and frantic, it got clumsier and more erratic. Each dodge and counter attack Cheryl performed only seemed to enrage it further. And then it happened, it took a wild swing at Cheryl who dodged like normal, but it overbalanced and stumbled forwards a few paces, almost falling to its knees with its back to Cheryl. Normally a person or a monster might be able to recover from a little stumble like that and simply turn around to continue the fight, but when your opponent is someone like Cheryl, well, you just don’t turn your back on someone like Cheryl.

She took full advantage of her enemy’s slip up and attacked, she rushed forward and punched the back of the Fiend’s left knee, there was a resounding crack and the creature howled in pain. It went down to all fours with a snarl, Cheryl backed off and spread her arms out wide.

The white glittering mist that had been gathering since the beginning of the fight suddenly rushed towards the downed Fiend in a massive wave. The Fiend was lost to sight for a few moments before the mist cleared, revealing the Fiend, still on all fours, but it looked like a half frozen corpse. It was still alive and moving, but very slowly, its deep rumbling snarls now sounded like weak strangled whispers, its flesh was covered in angry looking crusty patches that looked suspiciously like frostbite.

It turned around painfully and snarled at Cheryl, she smirked before conjuring numerous large chunks of ice out of thin air and bombarded the Fiend with them. Wherever the projectiles hit the afflicted frostbitten flesh of the Fiend, the flesh just seemed to shatter and fall to the ground in bits and pieces. Cheryl kept the bombardment going for half a minute or so before letting up.

The Fiend was still alive but breathing raggedly, much of its body was littered with grievous wounds, entire chunks of flesh were missing and multicoloured light and vapour was liberally gushing from its body. It looked hatefully at Cheryl through its blindfold for a moment before attempting to rise to its feet. Cheryl watched it impassively before languidly raising an arm, a long, thick, sharp shard of ice formed next to her. She lazily motioned forward and the ice shard shot forward, it went straight through the Fiend’s mouth and lodged there, impaled through the back of its neck.

With that, the Fiend finally collapsed to the ground. An extremely large amount of multicoloured light and vapour rushed out from the corpse and filled the entire room for several seconds before it cleared and everyone could see again.

When it cleared, a shocked Jack and Meredith stared with a little bit of awe at Cheryl standing in the middle of the room. Cheryl bent down to examine what had been dropped from the Fiend. Jack and Meredith walked across the cavern towards her.

“Aunty! Are you okay?” Meredith asked worriedly.

“Hm? Oh I’m fine munchkin, the big brute never even touched me,” Cheryl reassured her.

“What rank was that thing?” Jack asked her, still in wonder over the incredible fight he’d witnessed, it blew the one he’d seen between Flamewrought and Norton out of the water. She’d really taken that thing apart.

“These days I think a Fiend is ranked at a high A bordering on A plus,” she informed them.

“A plus, you’ve mentioned that before. I thought the ranking system just went from G to A,” Jack said with confusion.

“For most monsters and mutated animals it does, but there are some creatures that are too powerful to actually class and we wouldn’t dream of sending a normal hunter up against them. Those we call A plus rank, because we just can’t quantify their threat level, we also don’t want to tell the public about them because if they knew stuff like this was running around it would cause hysteria and panic. It's bad enough with the Titan ranked monsters, but at least they only appear very very rarely, so people aren’t losing their minds over that just yet.” Cheryl bent down as she spoke towards the spot where the monster fell, there was still a thick coating of vapour shrouding the area and she wafted her hand through it to clear it out.

What was revealed looked like the monster’s skull, the full, complete skull minus the flesh, and wrapped around the skull was the blindfold. She grabbed it with both hands and lifted it up, it was almost larger than her entire torso. She grinned smugly.

“Heh, this one’s way bigger than the one Eric took down last year, I actually can’t wait for him to get back from France so I can rub this in his face, literally.”

Jack however, was focussed on the blindfold wrapped around the skull. It was an off white, slightly dirty and ragged piece of linen or cloth, but almost the entirety of the material was covered in elegant runic script of some kind.

“Hey Cheryl, could you hold that steady for me please?” he asked as he dug his pager from his pocket.

“Hm? Oh yep sure.” Cheryl obliged and held up the massive skull for Jack to take a few pictures of the blindfolded skull from several angles. Once that was done she checked the photos over and had him send them over to her for use by the guild in its studies.

With that, they were finished. Cheryl decided it was time to head back to the entrance and the other two were all too glad to agree with her. They reached the surface in less than an hour without difficulty and emerged into the evening air. With relief Jack took in a deep breath of fresh cool air with his helmet visor up, he looked over to Meredith and they shared a grin.