Chapter 20

“Huh?” Jack was strolling down the main avenue of the outpost, the one that provided a wide direct route from the line of new shops opening up to the Dire Woods rift, the exit/entrance to the outside world.

He stopped in confusion however, when he felt something vibrate on his belt. It wasn’t his pager, something seemed to be juddering and making muffled clicking noises by his waist.

He looked down at the blade sheathed on his belt, it wasn’t his normal water crystal infused short sword, but instead it was the long knife he’d gotten from the Clifford’s Hill dungeon several months ago. It was a foot long, slightly curved dagger made from some sort of black stone like substance.

Jack wasn’t able to determine what substance the stuff was, but he thought it might be magically conductive since it came from a dungeon, so he’d decided to try carving some runic patterns into it from one of his other runic projects. He’d been going for something that could produce flaming projectiles and it had seemed like a success, until now.

He cautiously drew the blade out of the sheath he’d had made for it, the runes carved into its surface glowed an intense fiery orange and sparks spat out from them. The blade sounded like a wet log placed on an open fire, it crackled and spat and something sounded like it was hissing or shrieking within, like a screaming kettle. The juddering vibrations became steadily more violent and Jack could feel the magic inside was rapidly building in strength, as was the intense heat emanating from it. Various people passing by looked at him warily as Jack gingerly held up the glowing blade at arm's length. He didn’t quite know how it came to this, but he was pretty sure he knew what was about to happen.

“Oh…oh fuck….everyone run! Run! Everyone! Everyone fucking RUN!!” Jack screamed out before dropping the blade in the middle of the street and running away as fast as possible.

After a few seconds of hesitation, one person decided to do as they were told and everyone else followed them in fear and confusion. Jack passed Katie and Stacey who were walking in the opposite direction to him, they gave him some very confused glances as he approached them at the head of the crowd of other runners.

“Hey Jack? What are -?” Stacey began before Jack interrupted her.

“Run away! Run away! Run away!” Jack sprinted past them. Stacey and Katie shared a confused glance before deciding to just go with it and follow him.

Luckily everyone got clear of the magnificent fiery explosion that Jack’s rune blade produced. Also luckily, the main avenue was a very wide thoroughfare in order to allow large construction vehicles to drive down it and Jack had been standing in the middle of it so there was little damage to the surrounding buildings, from the fire at least, the shockwave did shatter a fair few glass windows.

When the blade finally exploded, everyone hit the deck as the earth itself rocked. Jack cringed from his prone position when he saw the modest sized mushroom cloud of smoke and flame rising in front of the Dire Woods rift.

“Er….Jack?” Katie asked uncertainly from a similar position next to him.

“Eh heheh.” He looked at them sheepishly. “My bad?”

“What in the actual FUCK is going on here!?” The commander's angry voice boomed out over the crowd of hunters and support personnel still taking cover on the ground. “WHO DID THAT!!” he screamed as he stomped over to them, pointing at the mushroom cloud.

Jack briefly considered just staying silent but he doubted his involvement would remain a secret for long, or at all. Better to just man up and face the music.

He slowly and awkwardly raised his hand like he was a kid back in school.

“Errant?” the commander asked in surprise.

“It was an accident?” Jack tried.

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

“They let you off with a warning!?” Stacey asked, incredulously.

“Yep, no one was hurt so…” Jack shrugged and smiled, a little chagrined.

“Holy shit! Maybe you really do have carte blanche, I’d have thought the commander would have you crucified for something like that!” Katie said with awe.

“Hmm…” Noah grunted but didn’t say anything, he simply looked at Jack with disapproval.

“What did you even do anyway? They said you made a bomb or something,” Nate asked with a frown.

“I er…that's not far off actually. I tried carving some runes into a piece of dungeon loot I got a few months ago, a short sword. I was trying to make something that would create flaming projectiles, but instead it sort of….exploded, not really sure why,” Jack explained sheepishly. “I think I must’ve made an error with one of the feedback conduit runic algorithms which made it unstable.” Jack thought for a moment what might’ve gone wrong.

“You made an exploding sword? Cool.” Nate gave an impressed look at him and nodded, completely ignoring the technical jargon.

“No, not cool, people could’ve been hurt!” Noah finally spoke up angrily.

“Ah but they weren’t!” Nate dismissed him.

“But they still could’ve been! Jack, that was dangerous and irresponsible, you-” Noah began before Jack interrupted him.

“Yeah yeah I know, I heard it all from just about every bigwig in the outpost and HQ, even London called to give me a bollocking.” Jack sighed. “They told me to stop messing around with runes in the apartment and out in populated areas, they’re giving me some space in the labs to carry on working. I’ve just got to…..give the R and D department my shield matrix design.” Jack again sighed bitterly.

He remembered that conversation, the commander had indeed been ready to crucify him but then Imogen Shriverston had video called from London and managed to extract this deal from him in return for clemency. That smug, victorious smile she’d given him over the video call still infuriated him even now.

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“You get your own lab space? That kinda sounds like a reward,” Meredith remarked.

“Not really, now I’ve got to collaborate with others and I’ll have people looking over my shoulder. Urgh, maybe I’ll go out into the Woods and experiment there or something,” Jack said miserably.

The next day, Jack and Nate were sparring in the training complex within the outpost. The complex wasn’t quite as big or impressive as the underground set up that was in the North Yorkshire branch HQ, but it was decent nonetheless, with a full gym and small indoor and outdoor sparring arenas with seating for a few spectators.

Nate and Jack traded blows with blunted but heavy practice weapons, Jack neglected to use his time dilation ability in the spirit of fairness. All in all, Nate had the edge on Jack in terms of brute strength and skill, though Jack still found himself able to react quickly to all of Nate assaults and could generally avoid and counter almost everything thrown his way.

However, by the time they were forced to call an end to their latest bout, Nate had Jack beaten with fifteen wins to Jack’s seven. Nate was an all out front lines assault fighter and he’d never been anything else, no stealth, no tricks, no traps, just rush the enemy with a big sword and a blast of fire. Nate had a savage, straight forward style and he was sticking with it.

Jack however preferred to be a Jack of all trades, no pun intended. He liked to be stealthy on his approach to a target if he could, but he also couldn’t deny the thrill and euphoric exhilaration he felt when it was nothing but him, the enemy and his axe.

Just as Jack was begrudgingly yielding that latest bout to Nate, the various loud speakers set up around the outpost spoke up with the outpost commander’s voice.

ATTENTION ALL HUNTERS. ALL HUNTERS ARE TO REPORT TO THE COMMAND BUILDING IMMEDIATELY. I REPEAT, ALL HUNTERS ARE TO REPORT TO THE COMMAND BUILDING IMMEDIATELY. THAT IS ALL.

EVERYONE GET THEIR ARSES OVER HERE RIGHT NOW! The loud speakers shut off.

Jack and Nate shared a look and grin before grabbing their gear and heading out of the training complex and over to the command building. There they joined a steadily growing crowd of hunters and other guild support personnel gathering outside its main doors.

After waiting ten minutes or so, it seemed like almost everyone in the outpost had gathered up, even though the announcement was apparently only for hunters. However, the normally taciturn and somewhat grouchy outpost commander called everyone together so rarely, it was all but guaranteed he was going to announce something big. So everyone wanted to hear what he wanted to say firsthand.

Once it appeared that everyone who needed to be here was, the commander came out of the building followed by several other higher ups, a few of his aides and several uniformed soldiers. One of the people following him made a few subtle motions with his hands and a small platform of stone grew half a metre out of the ground. The commanders nodded his thanks before stepping up on it.

“Right you lot! This is how it is, that attack a few days ago earned the interest of the government and the military, therefore…there’s going to be a joint expedition!” he announced. Immediately the crowd began whispering excitedly amongst itself, most of them had already known something like this was coming, courtesy of various gossips like Darren.

“The expedition will be composed of hunters, surveyors, members of the army and several diplomats. The expedition will be led by Cheryl Shriverston, she will be in charge overall and will have the last say over all matters. All hunters, surveyors, soldiers and diplomats will answer to her. Those hunters and surveyors who are interested in joining up, their names need to be submitted here by the end of the day. The expedition will commence in two days, that is all.” With that, the commander stepped down from the stone platform and brusquely swept back inside. The stone platform was made to swiftly disappear back into the ground by one of the higher ups before they followed him back inside.

Jack and Nate shared another excited look, they made to leave with the chattering crowd but then both their pagers chimed. They looked down at them and saw that they had both received the same message. They were being summoned to the command building. Curious, they turned back and pressed through the crowd of hunters and guild support personnel until they reached the doors to the command building, where they met the rest of team Meredith who had all received the same message.

“Hi everyone, did you all get the same message?” Meredith greeted them.

“Yup, got told to come here straightaway,” Stacey responded and everyone else said the same.

“Well erm…let's go in shall we?” Meredith led the way through the double doors into the command building. They were immediately directed to the map room where the outpost commander waited for them along with Cheryl and several of the base command staff. Also within the room, were several uniformed soldiers who were all consulting several maps of the Dire Woods, they turned to regard team Meredith as they walked in for a moment before turning back to their maps.

As soon as he entered, Jack felt the commander's glowering gaze centre on him. Jack avoided eye contact.

“Heya kiddo’s,” Cheryl greeted them with an amused smile.

“Hi aunty, you called us here?” Meredith asked curiously.

“We did, you guys have been tapped for this expedition if you want in,” Cheryl informed them cheerfully.

Nate and Katie immediately whooped in joy and high fived each other. Stacey fist pumped, even Noah looked pleased. Jack was a little surprised however, he’d thought he was still in the shit after his shenanigans recently. Meredith seemed to share his thoughts.

“Oh, can I ask why we were selected?” she asked politely.

“You mean why was your team selected after Errant nearly blew up the entire base?” the commander suggested sullenly with a glare at Jack.

“I think that's what she means, yes. Urgh,” Jack put in helpfully before Stacey roughly elbowed him in the ribs.

“Hmph, for now, Errant is the only competent lightning cultivator in the guild with a reasonable amount of strength, all the other lightning cultivators the guild has recruited recently wouldn’t last five minutes in the Dire Woods so they don’t want to risk it,” the commander begrudgingly explained. “We expect the expeditionary force to run into a lot of action on the trip they’re about to take since a lot of it is unknown territory, as such there will be plenty of chances for loot, a lightning cultivator will maximise the guild’s potential earnings in that respect.” He gave another unimpressed look at Jack.

Jack made to speak but Stacey nudged him in the ribs again.

“Well then, we’re grateful for this opportunity and we won’t let you down,” Meredith said.

“Good, report to the main square in front of the rift the day after tomorrow at O six hundred hours, pack for a two week expedition. Oh, you also need to go down to the firing ranges so you can get certified on the firearms we’ll issuing you with, that's it, dismissed.” The commander turned his back on them to go speak to the cluster of soldiers looking at maps.

“Firearms?” Meredith gave a questioning look to Cheryl who smiled as she escorted them out.

“Mm, if it comes down to a fight with these…elves, the guild wants you armed with superior weaponry,” Cheryl told them.

“Huh? What's wrong with what we got now?” Nate asked.

“Well, we’ve actually had some success in interrogating the elven prisoners we took earlier,” Cheryl admitted.

“Whoa really? What did they say? Who are they? What do they want?” Katie asked excitedly.

“I can’t really say for sure, but from the sounds of it, their homeland is very experienced in magic and cultivation, far more so than we are, in fact it sounds like they’ve always had it. We shouldn’t approach them assuming we’re on a level playing field in terms of magic and blades, so instead we’ll be going in with our regular arsenal but backed up with all the fire power we can haul through the Dire Woods. Pistols and assault rifles may not be very effective when facing down some two tonne armoured monstrosity charging at you at thirty miles an hour in a berserk fury, but against humans and humanoids, well you just can’t go wrong with a hollow point to centre mass,” she told them with a savage grin.