Chapter 24

“Well…there they go…” Stacey remarked as everyone watched the retreating elves through the rift.

“Now what?” another hunter asked.

Cheryl had them split up and search the rest of the fortress in teams. Jack and team Meredith were assigned to search part of the upper floors.

The layout of the fortress was a large sprawling affair made entirely out of some sort of white stone that had been moulded by earth cultivators, judging by the distinctive striations marking the stone surfaces. Much of it was bare stone with very little furniture or other furnishing or adornment. In fact much of it seemed new. However there were plenty of examples of different utility runes that all seemed to serve different purposes within the structure such as providing light and heat.

They searched corridor after corridor and room after room, there seemed to be no armed elves left in the building. What they did find however, were slaves, lots of slaves. Slaves of various different sentient races. In multiple rooms the hunters and soldiers found various beings huddled frightfully in corners, or still going about their duties as if nothing out of the ordinary was occurring or simply stood completely still whilst staring blankly into space. Each and every slave was completely silent, either not able or unwilling to communicate with the humans. In fact, most of the slaves barely even seemed cognisant of their surroundings beyond their assigned duties.

There were a variety of different sentient races present, some of them could be identified as orcs, serpentine naga, the canine knoll, reptilian kobolds, and goblins. There were also several other species present that no one had ever seen before such as short but squat humanoids that were suspected to be dwarves, dark grey skinned humanoids that looked like elves but for their skin and shockingly enough; humans.

Each being had brands of runes tattooed or carved into the skin of their torsos just below the neck in a ring that encircled them. Each slave or former slave appeared to be in different conditions; some looked healthy and well fed whereas others were found in miserable conditions, barely alive in tiny cages not able to stand up or lay down.

The slaves seemed to have been responsible for the upkeep of the fortress such as cleaning, repairs, fetching and carrying, cooking and otherwise serving their masters. Overall, around two hundred slaves were found in comparison to a rough count of one hundred and fifty elves formerly living in the fortress. Out of all the elves they encountered, only the female elf who’d guided them through the Dire Woods was still alive. She was currently lying in bed, recovering from the beating she took at the hands of one of the black armoured elves in the rift room.

Most of the former slaves were unresponsive to the humans, they either shied away in fear or attempted to continue going about their duties as normal. It was thought that the runic brands that marked them might have something to do with their behaviour. Jack was asked to take a look by Cheryl and the diplomats, being the only person available with any experience with runes.

“Hmm..” Jack examined one of the runes tattooed into the chest of a human man. The man stared ahead blankly, not seeing Jack or anyone else at all, just the space in front of him. He was dressed in a plain shirt and trousers, clean but simple. They’d found him in what looked like a kitchen, a pot of stew boiling over next to him while he stood there motionless. The hunters who’d found him had managed to lead him and the several others from the kitchen to a large room with beds that looked like a dormitory. However, apart from that, they weren’t able to get any reaction at all from the branded slaves. There were worries that they wouldn’t be able to get the former slaves to eat or drink or even sleep.

Jack continued to examine the runes on the man’s chest. He saw plenty of runes that he recognised and plenty that he didn’t. But he understood the general idea of the brand, it was some sort of rune matrix that induced a sort of compulsion, something that enforced absolute obedience in the slave to its masters. He also saw what appeared to be runes that didn’t have anything to do with compulsion or obedience, after a bit of puzzling out he finally realised that they were essentially a kill switch. If the brand was tampered with in any way, then something would happen that would cause the rune brand to kill the slave.

He relayed this to Cheryl and an extremely interested Dr Nicholson, who stared at the slave brand undisguised fascination.

“Well shit, is there anything you can do for them then? Can you remove them?” she asked with a concerned frown.

“I wouldn’t know where to begin. I’ll almost definitely wind up killing whoever I try and save. You know what? I take back what I said before, these elven runes aren’t primitive at all, they can be pretty complicated,” Jack told her helplessly.

“Why don’t we ask our guide? See if she knows anything?” Dr Nicholson spoke up from where he was taking pictures of the brand with his phone.

Jack frowned at him suspiciously. He seemed really interested in the slave brand, like really really interested. And Jack was pretty sure that the elf had betrayed them at the first opportunity so she wasn’t exactly a credible source for much of anything at this point.

“Fine,” Cheryl said curtly and sent a hunter to fetch the female elf.

A few minutes of waiting saw her brought to them. Dr Nicholson spoke to the elf kindly, though the elf still shivered when she looked at him. She turned her head to look at them in worry and confusion but after a few more words from Nicholson she stepped over to the human slave.

She bent down to look for a few seconds before looking up at them. She spoke a few nervous words with Nicholson and he turned to them.

“I’m afraid she can’t help either, apparently runes are very much the purview of this organisation of mages and the knowledge is handed out very sparingly. During one of our conversations, she informed me that all sales of slaves go through the mages so that they can be branded,” Nicholson told them, sounding very interested.

“Oh really?” Cheryl replied, sounding both bored and irritated before then sighing. She got out her pager and began swiping through it while listening to Nicholson distractedly.

“Indeed, in fact it sounds like an extremely orderly society. Did you know they have a strict caste system run by an elven royal family and a class of nobility at the top of society? They even restrict the amount of cultivation one can perform if you're in one of the lower castes,” Nicholson explained excitedly.

“Huh, I did not know that,” Jack replied, interested despite himself.

“Yes, the royals and nobles apparently have no limits to the cultivation they can undergo and also have first access to any items that aid in cultivation. After that, elven soldiers have an extremely strict and limited regimen of cultivation that they have to adhere to and below them are the various peon, servant and peasant castes who are only allowed to perform a very small amount of cultivation. In fact I rather get the impression that the royals and nobility would prefer it if they didn’t cultivate at all.” Nicholson smirked.

“Hmm, I wonder why that might be?” Jack asked sarcastically.

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

A couple of hours later, most of the expedition were gathered within one of the larger rooms which appeared to have once been used for meetings and gatherings. There was a variety of exquisite pieces of furniture here and there which many hunters lounged upon, covering the various pieces of silk and velvet with mud and blood.

Jack was sitting with Meredith and Katie amongst all the other chatting hunters and soldiers when Nate strutted into the room and made his way over to them. The female elven guide whose name was apparently Sumira, according to Dr Nicholson, was sitting nearby at another table and had been watching Jack, strangely enough.

“Is that…is that a jewelled goblet?” Jack asked Nate as he approached them.

Nate was carrying a large and extremely expensive looking golden goblet adorned with rubies, emeralds and other precious gems along with a similarly adorned flagon. It was the sort of thing one would find amongst the royal crown jewels of the British royal family.

“It certainly is, found it in another room just down the hallway, there’s a bunch of ‘em. How the other half live, am I right?” Nate took a gulp from the goblet before grinning at them smugly.

Just then, Cheryl walked into the room followed by the lieutenant and Dr Nicholson.

“Alright everyone, firstly I just want to say well fought, all of you,” Cheryl began. “You each did your jobs brilliantly and I couldn’t have asked for anything more. Now then, we’ve decided on a course of action we -,” Cheryl was interrupted however.

“What are we doing with the slaves?” a hunter spoke up.

There was a chorus of similar questions and similar sentiments echoed throughout the room.

Cheryl held her hand up for silence. “We’re….leaving them here and returning to the outpost without them,” she said simply.

Gasps of shock and outrage spread throughout the room.

Cheryl waited for the clamour to die down before continuing. “We can’t do anything with the slaves until we remove the slave brands and we can’t remove the slave brands without killing them. We can’t even get them to eat or drink so they’ll die in a couple of days anyway if they stay with us,” Cheryl explained grimly.

One of the hunters suggested a feeding tube and an IV drip.

“There’s over two hundred slaves here. We’d have to escort them back to the outpost for that Jonathon, we wouldn’t even make it back in time and it would be like ringing a massive dinner bell for all the Dire Woods to hear. We’d all die,” she solemnly replied.

The whole room was silent as they contemplated this.

Jack thought about it, it probably made sense, when they left this place the elves would come back and reclaim it. Hopefully they’d also reclaim the slaves and take care of them, letting them eat and sleep. Jack remembered watching one pitiful, poor woman still folding clothes even though she hadn’t been holding any clothes at all, she’d just been going through the motions, folding air because no one had told her to stop, hours after her masters had all been killed.

He also thought of the slaves he’d seen in the ‘warehouse’ section of the keep. It appeared the elven stronghold had a similar function for elves as the outpost did for the humans. The elves would frequently send out hunting parties to hunt and harvest valuable materials for transport back to their world. The warehouse was full of different harvested goods stacked high in crates and bags. Also in the warehouse however, were cages, many tiny cages stacked up high in clusters on top of one another, filled with goblins and other small sentient creatures, each creature had a slave brand imprinted on them.

When asked about their purpose, the female elven guide simply shrugged and described their use. From the sounds of it, the goblins and smaller examples of sentient life were seen as being extremely expendable by the elves, their use being similar to that of live bait, decoys or distractions during hunts. Or live snacks for the elves’ tamed monsters.

That was another thing Sumira elf was asked about, she told them that beast taming was quite common in elven society, though much more difficult than simply branding a slave. The tamed monsters were used frequently in battle and whenever beasts of burden were necessary such as in farming. Again, the elven mage organisation was apparently responsible for that too.

“Right! We’re packing up and leaving but before that we’re gonna loot this place and take everything of value. I’ll give each hunter team its assignments and the LT here will do the same for his marines. I want us out of here in two hours, let's get to work!” Cheryl commanded them.

Jack and team Meredith were assigned to search one of the upper levels, in there they found a variety of books and scrolls as well as maps and various esoteric artefacts. They bagged it all, Jack gleefully noted the pieces of literature that had details of various runes on them. He made a note to somehow learn the elven language in its written and verbal form so he could understand everything written down.

After a couple of hours, Cheryl sent a hunter to come and get them where they joined the rest of the expedition gathering in the courtyard. Without any further ado they began marching out of the elven fortress, swirls of multicoloured mist still lingered here and there which billowed as they swept through, empty pieces of elven armour littered the ground. Behind them, hundreds of sentient creatures within stared blindly and silently into space, like ghosts.

Just as they reentered the tree line, Cheryl directed several people to grab a few of the rune covered poles that were supposed to ward away monster spawns from the vicinity.

From there they marched back to the human outpost, tired and demoralised. Despite what Dr Nicholson had suggested about warfare being an extension of diplomacy, no one in the expedition was fooling themselves into thinking that had gone well. Although that was just Jack’s thinking from the perspective of a hunter, perhaps the higher ups in the government and the military had other ideas and motives.

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

“They’re thugs! Superpowered bullies! And the army isn’t much better either!” Team Meredith watched one of the tv’s in the outpost canteen a day after returning from the expedition. A politician from the opposition in parliament was denouncing hunters and the hunters guild in general.

The news had gotten out about what happened. The guild PR department had tried to put their own spin on it but there were limits. Now the public both local and international were shocked and outraged at the ‘unwarranted massacre' of the ‘helpless’ primitive elves.

“They’re a group of unhinged psychopaths who were unable to find a place in proper society! The guild needs to be audited and held to account by a proper third party oversight committee,” the politician continued vehemently. He was being interviewed in a newsroom.

“Do you think the government should run this oversight committee?” the interviewer asked.

“This government!? I don’t think so! How many disasters can we lay at their feet? Thousands are dead because of them, from the very start they’ve mishandled this crisis so badly they should all be locked up! At the very least there should be a formal enquiry!” the politician spat.

“Ah and how do you think this will affect the party's chances at the next general election?” the interviewer asked.

“Well….” the politician gave a smug smile.

Team Meredith watched the rest of the interview with increasing disdain. It was plain to see he was using all the tragedies of the recent past to propel his party into power in parliament in the next general election which was only two months away.

“Wow, how transparent is that guy?” Stacey asked rhetorically. “I mean, I once had my arms elbow deep in a Silver boar’s entrails but damn! Politics really is a dirty business! Do you think he’s ever even seen a monster or a rabid mutant up close?”

“Doubtful, he’d probably shit himself, that's not a good look for a public figure,” Jack remarked to the sniggers of the rest of the table.

“Is he really trying to lay the blame for this whole magic and monsters thing on the government? Like it's all their fault? Like his party could do any better?” Katie scoffed.

“Hmph, they’d probably do exactly the same as the current government. But since they’re the opposition, they can throw around all the dirt they want and can blame the current party in charge for everything that goes wrong, regardless of whether it's their fault or not. That's politics,” Stacey explained with a smirk.

“So what then, if they get voted into power then they won’t just tell us to pack up and get lost? There’ll still be a guild?’ Katie asked worriedly.

“Yeah, I don't think we need to worry about that. Even if the government wanted to get rid of us, the guild as a corporate entity is too rich and powerful to touch. They couldn’t just suddenly decide to do away with us, a lot of the economy has become dependent on the guild,” Stacey assured her.

They continued to watch the interview, typically, apart from deriding all the current government’s policies and past actions, the politician for the opposition failed to say or commit to anything concrete about what he and his party would do differently.

Eventually the story moved on to how a new mining company known as Norris Crystals Inc. had bought a dungeon in Anglesey, Wales. The dungeon was known to be a rich source of fire and earth crystals as well as other precious forms of dungeon loot and had already made the company a large amount of money. However as always, there was the question of dungeon monsters and defences and who was going to periodically clear the dungeon to prevent breakouts? Apparently, the company very much preferred to use its own contracted personnel to clear the dungeon, but the hunters guild argued that according to UK law, it was the guild's responsibility to make sure the dungeon was cleared properly and not a danger to the surrounding area.

So now there was an almost constitutional debate going on in parliament as to whether the guild should be given hunting rights in the dungeon or if the mining company should be given it. Many thought that the government might actually decide to amend the law slightly so that Norris Crystals Inc. would be allowed to clear the dungeon itself specifically in order to deny it to the hunters guild. That would serve to slow the guild’s rise in economic power and also act as a precedent for similar debates and issues in the future.

In other dungeon related news, the company that owned the low level dungeon, Clifford’s Hill, had been forced to sell the dungeon to the guild at a low price before disbanding. The company known as Yorkshire dungeon tours, had offered guided tours to tourists in the upper levels of the dungeon. Jack remembered having once been one of the hunter escorts for a single tour before getting fired several months ago, he’d been extremely sceptical of the whole endeavour and apparently he’d been right to be sceptical. The guided tours had suffered one misfortune and disaster after another. The many injuries and the occasional deaths were almost always in the local news and the pain wavers the tourists had signed didn’t dissuade them and their lawyers from seeking recompense. Eventually the company was forced to quit while they were ahead, or in this case quit before they were thrown in jail for criminal negligence, manslaughter or any of the other charges being brought against them.

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Jack watched this with a faint feeling of satisfaction, having more or less predicted this in several of his rants whenever his friends or associates asked him about it. However he had managed to introduce one of his friends, David, whom he’d met from the tourist company to the delights of the guild. David was now quite content as a career F ranker, performing low level but still relatively lucrative jobs around North Yorkshire. Some hunters looked down on career F and G rankers, but as far as Jack was concerned, they still hunted down genuine threats to human life and did a fair chunk of the guild’s work. And the more goblins they killed, the better.

Now that the guild had taken ownership of Cliffords Hill dungeon, that got Jack thinking. It was a low level dungeon, so not many hunters were chomping at the bit to get a piece of it. The most traffic it would see now would be the obligatory weekly delve the guild sent in order to make sure the dungeon didn’t spawn too many monsters that would break out into the city.

Jack thought about it, he’d been wanting to do a solo dungeon delve for ages now. If he did, then he’d finally have the opportunity to cultivate from live dungeon monsters, they gave out massive amounts of high quality lightning essence, he couldn’t get enough of the stuff. His lightning core and power would explode. The only caveat, was that he suspected his friends and others might be a little creeped out or wary of him if they witnessed him cultivating from still living beings, even if they were monsters. That was a side of himself he didn’t want to show off.

His mind made up, he resolved to speak with Cheryl about it. Technically he wasn’t allowed to do any hunts or jobs outside the Dire Woods while he was on rotation there, but there was no harm in asking.

Later that night, Jack tracked down Cheryl just outside the outpost command building. It was dark and cool, the various lights around the outpost attracted moths and flies and the base personnel including off duty soldiers wandered the avenues in varying states of drunkenness. He found Cheryl chatting with several surveyors by the main doors of the command building.

“Hey Cheryl!” He greeted her cheerfully.

She noticed him and nodded before saying goodbye to the surveyors she was speaking with. “Hey Jack, what's up?” She greeted him casually.

“Soooo….you know how we’re really great friends right?” He began, smiling hopefully at her. She just turned a full on suspicious glare at him. “Um right, so I was hoping to get a solo dungeon delve on my record, I heard that Clifford’s Hill dungeon might be free now so erm…yeah…” he finished awkwardly, grinning at her.

“You want to go to Clifford’s Hill?” she asked with a suspicious frown.

“Yep.”

“Even though you're already in the Dire Woods?”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

“Er..like I said, I wanna get a solo dungeon dive on my record,” he tried to convince her, though even he could tell he wasn’t doing great.

“Uh huh, well now that's a load of bull isn’t it? You’re always up to something Jack. It's cute, like a cat hiding stuff in their owner’s shoe, but you’re always up to something,” she looked at him with mild amusement.

Jack was offended at the dig on his dignity for a moment, but decided to let it slide, since Cheryl was perfectly capable of snapping him like a twig and technically she was his boss.

“I prefer to think of it as always having a trick up my sleeve, you should try it,” he pointed out.

“I have tricks, two in fact. They’re called my fists.” She balled up a fist in her other hand, the distinctive sound of ice cracking came from her fist.

“Right, anyway look, how about this? You get me that delve and I’ll owe you a big favour, how about that? A favour from the world’s first ever lightning cultivator? I can even autograph a card for you eh? How about that?” He just couldn’t help himself. He’d never been the best at kowtowing to authority figures.

She looked at him for a second before letting out a chuckle. “This is why I like you Jack, you’re not afraid to take the piss, on the other hand most of my other subordinates always look like they’re trying hard not to piss themselves when they talk with me,” she sighed. “Fine, you’ll get your delve and I’ll get my favour, just try not to die,” she told him firmly but still with a tinge of amusement.

“Mm, the PR department would be heartbroken if that happened wouldn’t they?” He grinned.

“Publicly, privately I think they’d throw a party,” she informed him with a smile.

“Ouch.”

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

The next day, Jack parked his in the car park near Clifford’s Hill. He got out and proceeded to pull on his gear over his combat suit. Numerous people including tourists and locals were passing by and noticed his presence. They all stopped and watched as he went about his business.

As soon as people realised it was him, there was a commotion, people pulled out smart phones and pointed and gawked. Jack ignored it all and carried on getting ready, though his shoulders tensed self consciously, his combat suit was skin tight and didn’t leave much to the imagination.

Once he was ready, he made the short walk over to the dungeon entrance. All company paraphernalia used by Yorkshire Dungeon tours had been removed, leaving behind the chain link fence topped with razor wire and an empty ticket booth. Though Jack could still see the light military presence of several armed soldiers across the road, still guarding the dungeon in case anything non-human decided to wander out.

Jack approached the unnatural inky blackness of the dungeon entrance, he rolled his shoulders to loosen up and then stepped on through.

On the other side he looked around, it looked the same as always, like a literal mediaeval dungeon. Multiple fiery braziers were scattered around providing light to the interior. Jack began walking forward, on the lookout for his first kill.

Soon enough he found it, a couple of goblins jumped out from a dark cell and attempted to stab him with long knives. He easily fended them off, killing one with his spear before grabbing the other by the throat. It kicked and struggled feebly, trying to bite and slash him. Jack pushed some lightning into the monster, it spasmed and twitched, dropping the knife it held. He then pulled.

Immediately, a surge of lightning energy shot up his arm from the dungeon goblin and flowed into his core. It was like a glass of cool water during a drought, it felt amazing, there was no uncomfortable tingling or numbness, no painful muscle twitches or spasms and no killer headaches, it felt right. In the past Jack had wondered why that might be, why cultivating from normal monsters always made him feel sick after a while and why cultivating from dungeon monsters made him feel so great.

He finished draining the goblin of power and allowed what was left to disintegrate into wisps of multicoloured light and vapour. Jack smiled and let out a satisfied sigh before continuing through the dungeon.

He made his way all the way through the first several floors, periodically getting ambushed by goblins and then quickly draining them, absorbing their lightning essence. Eventually he made it down to the arena floor where a couple dozen goblins dressed in chainmail wielding short swords, spears and shields all gathered up and charged at him. Jack rapidly fired off one quick lightning bolt after another before the goblin mob reached him, he then finished off the rest at knife range. He made sure to grab as many goblins as possible and cultivate from them.

Just as he was about to descend to the next floor, something strange happened; as he set foot on the stairs going down, he could’ve sworn the entire dungeon shook and rumbled for a moment. He frowned in confusion and looked around warily before ignoring it and walking downstairs.

He made his way down to the dark floor with the underground lake in the middle. The floor was completely quiet except for the gentle lapping of the dark water against the stone walls surrounding it. He walked to the water’s edge and peered over the wooden railings, he could just about see the tell tale blue glow that indicated the presence of the Cerulean Vitae down at the bottom. What was also down there, he knew, were dozens of strong aquatic monsters. He knew that if he dived down there he could survive, but it would be difficult, he’d have a real fight on his hands, but he was on his own right now and without support if things went wrong. He’d leave it for now and consider diving in on the way back.

He continued down to the next floor.

It was just as he remembered it, a large cavern filled with natural stone pillars rising from the ground to the ceiling interspersed with stalactites and stalagmites. Floating here and there were swarms of glowing insects known as dungeon fireflies. Overall it was quite picturesque and visually arresting, which was probably the point because lurking throughout the floor were goblins that would ambush the unwary and those that let their guard down. Knowing this, Jack proceeded forward cautiously, ready for the first ambush.

However, he got halfway through the cavern and there was nothing, he frowned and began wandering around and still, nothing. Not a goblin in sight, had another party of hunters come through recently? No, if that were the case then the upper floors would be empty also.

Nevermind, he shook it off as an anomaly or luck, then continued to the next set of stairs downward. Still nothing, no goblins at all. He walked down.

The next floor was a mirror image of the previous one, a large cavern with stone pillars, except this one was pitch black. It had been reasoned in the past that perhaps the dungeon had designed this floor to make hunters wander around it for an extended period of time, thereby increasing the amount of time it had to passively leach off energy from the delvers. Though that would suggest a higher level of intelligence.

In anycase, this floor was known to have zero monsters and Jack knew the way to the next set of stairs so he continued onwards after turning on his maglite. He was walking forwards at a relaxed pace until he heard the pitter patter of feet an instant before he felt a stabbing pain in his thigh.

“Argh!” he let out a small scream of pain and surprise and dropped his light as he felt something slashing his leg. He stumbled to the side and hurriedly drew his short sword and blindly slashed around with it, he felt it hit something and heard a screech in the darkness.

Jack dove for light and swung the beam around, he was just in time to catch the fleeing forms of several goblins running around behind the stone pillars. He could hear them now, their nonsensical babbling and high pitched shrieking cackles. What were goblins doing on the sixth floor? It was supposed to be clear of monsters.

He didn’t have time to think of an answer as he heard a shuffling behind him and turned around just in time to see another goblin leaping at him. He swung a beam of light into its eyes and it shrieked in pain and recoiled allowing Jack to stab it. The body quickly turned to multicoloured light whilst still skewered on his sword.

After that, a great shrieking went up all around him and he heard the charging of tiny feet across the stone ground as a small horde of the miniscule horrors charged at him. Jack poured lighting into his sword and began swinging it around in arcs all around him. The sword, just like his axe, was infused with a water crystal so whenever he infused it with his energy, it would release a spray of water vapour around him. Normally that wouldn’t be enough to kill anything, but he could combine that with his own lightning element and generate powerful shockwaves of electricity.

The blue rippling arcs of lightning pulsed outwards with every swing of his sword, it lit up the area around him, illuminating dozens of tiny malevolent faces glaring at him hungrily.

The arcs of lightning ripped into them and the feral screeching and cackling quickly turned to strangled, pained cries. Jack bathed them in lightning, quickly swinging his sword all around him. Maybe he was putting a little too much power into his attacks and his moves were a little frantic. But despite having faced down death and gone to places that would give a horror movie monster the chills, there was still that very human fear of being alone in the pitch black darkness surrounded by things that wanted to eat him. Evolution appeared to have hardwired that into him.

Soon enough, Jack found himself surrounded by multi coloured light and vapour that rose from the slain dungeon goblins. However plenty of goblins here and there were still alive and twitching feebly, Jack grabbed them and quickly used them as cultivation, greedily absorbing all the lightning essence he could. After he did so, the dungeon trembled and rumbled again which by now Jack was certain wasn’t just in his imagination.

He allowed the last goblin to dissolve into light in his hand and looked around cautiously. The dungeon had stopped shaking, whatever the hell that was about he had no idea. Maybe it was a new feature or something to do with that, he’d heard dungeons could learn and evolve over time, that they actually used the energy they leached from delvers both fallen and living to grow and expand themselves.

Ignoring the oddity again, Jack swept through the remnants of the clouds of multicoloured light and vapour and walked the rest of the way through the pitch black cavern to the stairs leading downwards. No more goblins attacked him, it seemed everything on the floor had attacked him all at once, weird.

He walked down the steps to the next floor, he emerged into a quiet, mist shrouded forest, here and there lay stone ruins scattered around. In the distance, the sound of running water could be faintly heard. It was eerily quiet, though this floor had always been so.

As he stepped forward, he sheathed his weapons and got ready to channel energy into his left arm runic matrix. The constructs of hard light he could create with it were incredibly useful, though it took practice to create something useful. But still, with the way he’d written the runic algorithms, he could conceivably create any complicated shape he liked, not just shields.

When he’d finally shown the guild researchers (under protest) what he’d come up with, they had initially been excited about it, however that excitement soon faded. He’d designed the rune matrix for flexibility, to allow him to perform multiple functions with the set up, not just create shields, however that still took a bit of brain power and concentration to do and required him to know all the ins and outs of each rune he’d inscribed. According to the researchers, that wasn’t optimal, it was too complicated and it was unlikely that a lot of hunters would take the time to learn about runes and how to read and write them. In essence, because it wasn’t idiot proof, it wouldn’t sell.

The guild researchers and ‘rune experts’ were attempting to create commercially viable products that the user could just ‘fire and forget’. They wanted to make it so that the user could simply cast whatever runic effect had been designed and get the desired result without little to no thought or effort required. Otherwise the user or consumer would be required to learn about runes and quite possibly the scientific effect behind them. According to the guild that was unacceptable because it would drastically reduce their future customer base and sales.

He rolled his eyes as he thought about that, he should’ve expected that sort of thing from the guild by now. The guild was simultaneously both in the life saving business and the money making business.

He continued walking forward, he stepped off the stone platform at the foot of the stairs and stepped onto the soft grass within the misty forest, getting ready to put some power into his shield matrix and get some practice in. With his other arm, he pulled out the result of another one of his projects. From his belt he withdrew a short wooden rod about one and half feet in length and three inches in width. The entire surface was covered in runes, detailed and intricate runes carved into the dark wood.

The wood the rod was made from was harvested from the Dire Woods, every mundane material he used would quickly degrade whenever he experimented so instead he decided to give something less mundane a try. During one of his hunts, Jack had hacked off the branches of several different trees that he couldn’t recognise as having ever grown on Earth, he then carved the branches into an easily manageable shape and carved the runes into them. He carried several rods all with the same runic matrix carved into different types of wood.

The runic matrix in question was his own attempt to conjure and manipulate fire. He didn’t quite understand how fire cultivators created fire, nor even how he created lightning, but the runic sequence he’d come up with would be his own interpretation. He’d put in the rune for fire then created various different algorithms that gathered and concentrated the surrounding air, controlled its flow, superheated it and ignited it. He wouldn’t be able to control fire like a true fire cultivator like Nate and there were some limitations on the power he could put into the matrix, but it would certainly expand his skill set and allow him to see what was possible.

He was also working on creating a runic algorithm that would let him change the molecular and atomic make up of the very air around him, splitting the nitrogen in the air into pure oxygen or hydrogen. That would allow him to create a much more potent flame. However, he hadn’t come across any runes that were meant to be used in such a way, he didn’t even know if other civilisations that used and created runes knew of such a concept as molecules, atoms and base elements. But if there weren't any runes that could precisely match his aspirations, then he was still pretty confident he could come up with a work around.

In any case the guild bigwigs said he couldn’t practise or experiment with runes out in public or in anywhere people lived, so a live dungeon seemed like the perfect place.

Jack walked through the silent misty forest, expecting an ambush from goblin bushwackers any moment, but it didn’t happen. The dungeon was still acting strange, though he didn’t have time to look around in confusion because he soon found out what was different on this floor.

He heard it before he saw it, a low deep rumbling growl, first from behind a tree to his right, then to his left and then behind him. He stopped and got ready for whatever he was about to face. Loud thumping footsteps, the crackling of breaking branches and the rustling of bushes being stomped through preceded the threat.

Three large humanoid figures emerged from the surrounding forest, ogres. Each ogre was around three metres tall and up, they had brown skin covering bulging muscles and each creature wielded massive, identical looking cleavers. Each creature had squashed looking pig-like faces and wore ragged kilts made up of a mixture of cloth and leather material.

They growled at him menacingly and stomped forward.

“Oh fuck.” These weren’t goblins, where were his goblins! These things were supposed to be the final boss of the dungeon! And there was supposed to be only one! What was up with this dungeon today!

The first monster reached him and swung its cleaver to try and bisect him. Jack dodged and sent a blast of fire from his rod. A respectable gout of fire covered the beast’s hide and Jack was momentarily pleased, however that faded when he saw the beast had barely even felt his attack. The ogre snarled and attacked again.

Jack ducked and backed off but then remembered he had two more of the fuckers to contend with when another beast slammed its cleaver into Jack’s hastily erected shield which drove him to his knees. This situation was rapidly moving up mental list of fucked up situations. Another ogre took a swipe, his shield cracked.

He did the only thing he could think of that would work, he ran away.

He ran into the trees, instinctively making his way to the sound of running water and the river, hopefully there would be no more ogres there. Where the hell did these ogres come from! What the hell was wrong with this dungeon!

He reached the river at a sprint, stumbling through the bushes, a low hanging tree branch hitting him in the face. Thankfully there were no ogres waiting for him there. However he could hear all three creatures rushing after him, judging by the racket they were making as they ploughed through the small forest.

Jack hurriedly waded into the river, hoping it would at least slow them down. He waded and dog paddled through the water until he got to the other side and climbed out onto the other bank. Just as before he turned around, he heard deep growls and snarls.

The ogres seemed to be laser focused on him and weren’t willing to let him go, immediately upon reaching the river they plunged in and began stomping through, the water barely got up to their waists.

Jack reached deep into his core and began pouring as much lightning as he could into the water. Instead of isolated lightning bolts, the lightning came out first in short random bursts before coming out in a continuous stream. He was surprised for a moment but kept it going regardless, his mild panic fueling the continuous stream of lightning pouring into the surface of the water.

The water hissed and frothed as the blue stream of lightning hit it, the ogres snarled and stumbled slightly but they kept walking through the water. But they soon started to slow down, their movements became more sluggish and less coordinated. They got closer to the other side and Jack but he kept his attack up, he could feel his core strain, feeling both hot and cold at the same time.

After another few moments, the ogres had stalled, having stumbled to their knees in the water but still struggling to reach him. Steam was emanating upwards from the surface of the water. One of the ogres had gotten almost all the way to the other side of the river and was struggling to crawl up the shallow river bank, its furious eyes focussed on Jack. The other two were still in the middle of the river, twitching and spasming, doggedly stumbling onwards.

Jack halted his attack for a moment and conjured a long blade of light using his shield matrix, the blade was about three feet in length, blue and glowing slightly. It didn’t look like much but the blade was as strong as the power he put in it and not even a micrometre in thickness, meaning it could pretty much cut through anything as long as he put some muscle and magic into it. With that in mind, he approached the ogre still trying to claw its way up the muddy river bank.

Without ceremony, Jack slid his conjured blade straight into its skull. The ogre collapsed to its belly and fell still. Jack made sure to draw out as much lightning essence as he could before it disappeared. The dungeon rumbled and shook.

Once he’d taken everything he could from the first ogre, he waded into the water and finished off the second and third, again making sure to use them for cultivation essence.

The dungeon began shaking and rumbling again, this time an angry sounding howling roar ripped through the area. The river water went from calm and tranquil to gushing rapids in moments, Jack struggled to keep himself from being swept away. He frantically waded through the river to the river bank. Just as he managed to claw his way out, the river began rapidly rising, the water’s edge nipping at his heels.

Jack backed away from the river, it continued to swell, enlarging faster and faster, the water seemed to be coming from nowhere, already it had submerged his ankles and several inches of the forest floor was underwater. The water showed no signs of slowing down. The dungeon was flooding this level!

He needed to leave, which way did he go? Up or down? With the unpredictable way the dungeon was acting, he decided it was better to retreat for now, he only had one life after all. However, after sloshing his way through the forest and reaching the stairs going upwards, he saw a massive torrent of water gushing down the stairs like a waterfall. There was no way he’d be able to climb up that. He was trapped!

With no other option, he turned around and began wading to the stairs leading to the next level. Several minutes later he made it to the stairs, he could still see them and it seemed the water was draining downwards. He stepped on the stairs, or tried to anyway, the stairs were hidden beneath a torrent of falling white water and he quickly lost his footing and fell downstairs.