Chapter 26

He ran. He ran and ran and ran. The entire dungeon seemed to be collapsing around him whilst at the same time, actively doing its best to kill him. He’d barely made it off the bottom floor before struggling his way through the next several. The entire time, he dogged by screaming half formed goblins, twisted and mutated in a similar manner to the ogre he’d fought in the boss room.

When he got to the sewers, he’d been afraid that the entire floor would be submerged or just a network of raging rivers that he’d have to somehow force his way through. Instead, it was bone dry, he thanked whatever powers that be for his luck but eventually realised that without the water flow to guide him, he was lost.

He spent the most nerve wracking ten minutes of his life running through a maze of pitch black narrow tunnels that were shaking and collapsing until he eventually stumbled upon the exit by chance. His steps continued to be harried by randomly appearing mutated goblins that came screaming out of the darkness at him. When he set foot on the stairs to go up, he flipped the dungeon the bird and ascended.

From there, he continued to run through the different levels, the shaking of the dungeon was getting increasingly violent and Jack was having trouble keeping his footing, sometimes needing to crawl on all fours to make any progress.

Eventually he made it to the fourth floor and the underground lake. He had absolutely no desire to jump in for a dip, feeling like he’d pushed his luck far enough already. He ran along the pathway bordering the lake and up the stairs.

The dungeon was in full meltdown mode now, like an angry child throwing a tantrum. Jack continued to be accosted by demented, screaming, malformed goblins while the floor buckled and cracked and the walls and ceilings would collapse like a cave in. Sometimes great gouts of water would explode out of the walls, ceilings and floors and begin to flood whatever area he was in. Jack doggedly waded and fought through it all, his concentration firmly on getting the fuck out of there.

By now he was just cresting the stairs that lead to the first floor, but the fresh dungeon essence that had been saturating his core and providing strength to his muscles had ceased its temporary energising effect. He could feel his muscles strain and weaken, as if he’d just run a marathon and his body was done, only being propped up by pure adrenaline and determination at this point. His breath came out in ragged gasps, he snarled and gritted his teeth as he stumbled on.

The end was in sight, he could see the dungeon entrance flanked by burning torches. But out of a nearby shadow, an immense figure stepped in front of the entrance.

“Oh fuck me!” he shouted in frustration. It was another ogre, a mutated one like from the boss room, though this one looked far weaker and malformed than the previous iteration. Compared to the other one, it looked half starved and emaciated, with a twisted torso and a full extra head that was half the size of the other one and lolled limply off to the side.

It stood in front of the entrance and snarled at Jack when it spotted him down the other end of the hallway. Jack snarled too, he reached deep into his lightning core and pulled out the very last dregs, pushing it into his muscles and feeling it fuel his strength. He began to sprint towards the mutated ogre and drew his spear.

The ogre raised its numerous cleavers as Jack drew near, but before it could strike, Jack leapt forward and stabbed his spear straight into the beast’s chest as he pressed the spear’s extension button.

The ogre toppled backwards through the dungeon entrance and Jack remained stuck to the ogre through his spear, his feet planted on the ogre’s abdomen. The inky blackness enveloped them both for a split second before they were bathed in natural sunlight. Jack then pulled the trigger on his spear. A muffled explosive crump sounded and most of the beast’s chest disappeared in a shower of gore, smoke and flame.

The ogre finished toppling backwards and Jack’s own momentum took him flying over its shoulder, coming to a rolling stop several metre’s onwards, wreathed in smoke and vapourised ogre blood.

He regained his feet unsteadily and looked around, blinking in confusion. It was only after a moment that he registered the panicked screaming and shouting all around him. His disorientation faded and he saw that he was surrounded by crowds of people all around him, normal people, police, soldiers, paramedics, journalists and a few hunters too. He grimaced and took off his helmet, allowing the mass of noise to wash over him. The cool air hit his face and he took a deep breath in.

He ignored the mass of humanity for a moment and ejected the spent casing from his explosive spear, catching it as it flew out.

He then looked around at what he was surrounded by, what fresh hell is this? He wearily wondered.

It seemed there was a full military cordon around the dungeon entrance, with many soldiers manning the barriers, pointing their weapons his way, or looking at him with uncertainty. More than a few hunters stood amongst them. Hundreds of normal people had gathered beyond the cordon, held back by the police, all looking on with excitement or terror.

Jack looked out at it all in bewilderment. What were they all doing here? Surely he hadn’t created that much of a ruckus had he? Now what? Maybe convince those soldiers with machine guns not to open fire somehow? How does one normally go about doing something like that?

“Uh…please don’t shoot?” he called out hesitantly. No, he could do better than that. “I come in peace!” Better.

From amongst the line of soldiers and hunters, came a very amused but also strangely irate looking Cheryl.

“You know I’m tempted to have them shoot you anyway,” Cheryl remarked as she marched over.

“Hey Cheryl!” He greeted her cheerfully.

“We’ve got half a dozen guild branches and part of the military scrambling because of you! What the fuck did you do?” she asked him, ignoring his greeting.

“Er…..er…..”

“Talk! Now!”

“Well erm…I may not have been completely honest about my erm…motivations for wanting a crack at this dungeon,” he told her guiltily.

“Oh really?” she responded sardonically.

“Haha, yeah, um….I can actually cultivate from dungeon creatures,” he told her and her eyebrows rose in surprise. “But they have to still be alive, and when I do it, I get a tonne of high quality lightning essence that doesn't make me feel sick at all,” he nervously explained.

“Hmm…” She eyed the crowds of people and journalists raptly watching them. They couldn’t hear what Jack and Cheryl were saying to each other, but they watched them like hawks. Cheryl grabbed Jack’s shoulder and took him closer to the dungeon entrance where the mutated ogre lay. “Why did you feel the need to come here alone though?” she asked as she looked down at the creature.

He shrugged. “People already look at lightning cultivators with mistrust and suspicion, I didn’t really want to advertise something like that was a possibility, or do it in front of my friends.”

“This explains some things.” She motioned her head towards the dungeon entrance. “And do you know what you made the dungeon do? Clearly it didn’t appreciate what you were doing, do you know why we’re all out here?” she asked him.

“Umm ... .not really, it just started going crazy after a while, it changed up a bunch of stuff and started acting funny. When I killed the boss, it just seemed to lose its shit and started to collapse around me, sending all these mutated little goblins after me while I ran,” he explained with another shrug.

She sighed in exasperation and shook her head. “Oh Jack, you’re a smart guy, but sometimes you can be seriously dense. You forced the dungeon into a state of critical mass,” she told him.

“Critical mass? That rings a bell.” He frowned in thought and Cheryl lightly cuffed him on the back of the head. The crowd let out a small laugh.

“Critical mass is when the dungeon either feels threatened by too many delvers entering all at once or it sees a giant meal laid out before it and it loses all restraint and goes berserk, or it loses its shit as you put it. Somehow…well, I think you cultivating and absorbing the essence of the dungeon monsters that would have otherwise been reabsorbed back by the dungeon pissed it off and provoked it into a self defence reaction. Lots of dungeons react in different ways in those types of situations and it normally ends with a full party wipeout. You got lucky,” she told him grimly before looking down at the mutated ogre again.

Jack noticed it wasn’t dissipating straightaway like every other dungeon monster and realised that the dungeon probably no longer had access to the ogre now that it was in the outside world. Its five giant cleavers lay by its side. All five cleavers were infused with earth crystals. In the back of his mind while he’d been running for his life, he’d been worried that he hadn’t recovered any dungeon loot, but now, well, each of those cleavers were valued in the tens of thousands of pounds. He also had something else of value.

He knelt down to attune the mutated ogre. He heard the crowd murmur in fascination as they watched him work first hand. He stood up and smiled at Cheryl.

“How would you like a horrifically mutated dungeon spawned ogre Cheryl? Is it your birthday soon or something? In fact I didn’t get you anything for Christmas did I? I’m an arsehole, merry Christmas!” He grinned and she snorted, unimpressed for a moment but then let out an amused smile.

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

“Jack! How are you my boy? You caused quite the ruckus today young man! Hahaha!” Welts chortled good naturedly as he greeted Jack and clapped him on the back. “Forcing a dungeon into critical mass all on your lonesome!? Remarkable! Hahaha!” Welts chortled again and Jack could only smile awkwardly.

They were in director Welts’ office back in the North Yorkshire branch headquarters. Welts was sitting in his plush office chair grinning at Jack from across his expansive desk, Jack was slumped tiredly in one of the equally plush chairs facing Welts.

“Ha..er yeah, I didn’t know that was going to happen to be honest, I just…well yeah..” he sheepishly responded, now somewhat embarrassed about the whole thing.

“Ah not to worry Jack! Not to worry! These things happen and you weren’t to know the dungeon would react that way! Besides, now we’ve discovered something new and now we know not to do that!” Welts reassured him with another laugh.

“Okay..so I’m not in trouble then?” Jack asked him hopefully.

“Well….technically no, but er..I or the guild in fact, do have a small favour to ask of you, whilst you’re here.” Now Welts sounded hesitant.

“Oh?”

“Yes, you are of course aware of the serial killer who has been going around the country, murdering many individuals, and is strongly suspected to be a lightning cultivator?” Welts asked.

“Oh I’m definitely aware of that alright,” Jack nodded grimly. He couldn’t not be aware of it by now.

“Well, we would like your help in catching them, we -”

“I’ll do it,” Jack interrupted him.

“Oh? But you don’t even know what I was going to ask you lad,” Welts said in bemusement.

“I…sort of feel like I’ve got a personal stake in how this plays out, somehow.” Jack frowned as he tried to explain.

Before the possibility of lightning cultivation was outed to the public, he and other lightning cultivators had been looked down on and pitied, in a world where true martial strength was beginning to become more and more valued in society, Jack and others like him had been destined to remain weak. But now, from the way his own outing in the media had gone, from the way lightning cultivation was getting portrayed by the media, and now thanks to this to this serial killer on the loose, their reputation had gone from a bunch of weaklings who’d lost the genetic lottery to sinister predators stalking potential victims in the night.

He’d been in the Dire Woods for most of the time while lightning cultivators had been taking a nose dive in reputation amongst the general public. But on his very occasional forays into the outside world, he noticed normal people were either surprised and excited to see him, or they were downright wary and were doing their best to stay out of arm's reach. It was more or less the exact sort of scenario Jack had been wanting to avoid.

“I'll do whatever I need to to help take this guy down,” Jack affirmed. “Well…within reason.” He shrugged.

“Excellent! Thank you so much Jack, I’m sure the guild execs and the police will be ecstatic to hear this!” Welts grinned in delight.

“Great, so…what is it you want me to do?”

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

Bored….bored………..bored!

He was lying in a hospital bed in York hospital, staring up at the ceiling, bored out of his mind. How long had it been? He looked at the time, only two hours!? Where were they!

The plan, such as it was, was for Jack to essentially be bait. The guild and the police had persuaded the media to report in the news that Jack had been seriously injured during his dungeon delve and was currently helpless in a hospital bed in York hospital. Yes, helpless, alone, undefended, vulnerable, a tempting target hopefully.

During the police’s hunt for the serial killer, it had been found that a fair proportion of their victims were fellow lightning cultivators. It was reasoned that the killer likely derived greater power from another lightning cultivator’s core, and was specifically hunting them down.

Hence, Jack was to offer himself up as bait, currently the most powerful and well known lightning element by default, and now advertised to be completely vulnerable. He’d make a tempting target for serial killers who targeted fellow lightning cultivators, hopefully. He just wished the bastard would hurry up, he wasn’t allowed a tv in his room or any other electrical appliances because the police and hospital staff thought they’d just get broken if a fight between lightning elements broke out.

The hours ticked on, Jack eventually dozed off for a while and even found time to persuade a nurse to get him a chinese takeaway and some magazines. It was during the dead of night however, when things finally began to get interesting.

He couldn’t sleep, his internal clock was off because it turned out he’d been fighting in the dungeon a lot longer than he’d thought and only emerged early in the morning. He’d then napped the afternoon away in the hospital. So, to while away the hours of the dead of night, he practised his sensory ability.

He extended his senses outwards and used them to sense all the artificial and organic clusters of electrical impulses around him. Most of what he was surrounded by were various electrical devices that one might find in hospitals and offices, there were few actual people around. Not because it was nighttime, but because they’d put Jack in an isolated hospital ward without any patients and with very few staff, in fact most of the people in the immediate vicinity were police officers waiting for the guest of honour to show up. They’d even vacated the next two neighbouring wards and squeezed the patients into other sections of the hospital in case there was any fighting.

Jack idly used his senses to track the various clusters of electrical impulses he recognised as human, ‘watching’ the police officers, nurses and doctors as they went about their business. Eventually however, a new cluster emerged onto the ward from the double doors at the end of the corridor. At first Jack thought that it was just part of a shift change for staff or the police officers, or maybe a cleaner.

But the new person acted strange, Jack ‘watched’ as they seemed to avoid all contact with anyone else on the ward, they walked slowly, their head slowly but furtively turning this way and that as if they were looking for something. Also, their cluster of electrical impulses, it shone, it shone far more so than every other individual in the area. After a moment of watching it, Jack had to withdraw his senses so he didn’t burn his eyes out, it was like looking directly into a lightbulb.

The strange new person continued to wander around the ward for several minutes before it eventually made its way to just outside Jack’s room. Jack had a radio on him underneath his bed covers that was linked into the police chatter, so he would be alerted if anyone strange had been spotted by the police. But he wasn’t alerted, whoever it was outside his door had just been let through without any fuss. He thumbed the talk button on the radio several times to make it click over the network, but after a moment he didn’t receive any response.

The door handle began to turn as the stranger reached out and grabbed it, Jack hurriedly laid back on his bed and pretended to be injured and comatose. He was wrapped up in bandages and gauze in order to sell the impression that he was helpless and vulnerable, a tempting target for a serial killer who targeted their own kind.

Jack lay his head on his pillow and closed his eyes, he heard the door open and footsteps sound on the floor, approaching him.

“There you are….I’ve finally found you…. at last….Jack….” a quiet but excited adult male voice came from the stranger. Jack tried to remain still, where were the police? Just from his voice alone, Jack could tell this guy was oozing crazy and clearly not meant to be here. Shouldn’t there be squads of armed officers storming into his room right about now? He clicked the radio again but still received nothing back.

He couldn’t help himself, he opened his eyes. A man wearing hospital scrubs was standing over his bed, staring down at him with a wide smile. He was caucasian, in his mid thirties with messy brown hair, a creepy unhinged smile and wide bloodshot eyes. He seemed familiar.

“Ah, you’re awake. Do you remember me Jack?” the man asked with an excited grin.

Jack watched him cautiously for a moment before answering. “You seem sort of familiar, have we met?” he answered after a moment.

The stranger giggled again. “You remember! It’s me! Haha! Michael! We met months ago in the guild car park before I got chased away by security. I asked you to teach me about lightning cultivation,” Michael explained happily.

It clicked, Jack remembered fully now. He had indeed run into Michael in the North Yorkshire branch HQ car park, Michael had apparently trespassed onto the property and likely did a bit of light stalking in order to meet him. He’d asked Jack to teach him about lightning cultivation and the proper methods to go about it before security had caught up to him. Initially he’d struck Jack as a bit of a harmless geek, apparently he’d been wrong.

“Oh, yeah I remember that. So erm….how’ve you been?” Jack asked him awkwardly, how does one engage a serial killer in conversation?

“Yes, you should remember. I went to you for help but you brushed me off!” Michael's previous happy excitement instantaneously did a full turn around into angry and sullen.

“Wha!? I didn’t brush you off! You got chased away by security! Like you said! I never saw you again after that, what was I supposed to do?” Jack protested.

“You could’ve reached out to me, you could’ve tried to find me, I was another lightning cultivator, just like you! We’re brothers! We could’ve worked together. But instead you went back to the guild and got on with your life.” Michael looked at Jack sullenly, with accusatory eyes. “With all those other elements, all the ones that looked down on us, all the ones that hated and pitied and bullied us! Well….they don’t pity us anymore, they’re beginning to fear us! As they should!” he began to rant.

Oh dear. Jack had once watched a sci fi fantasy tv programme where one of the characters had declared himself the world’s worst nightmare, that he was a victim with superpowers. He didn’t know anything about Michael’s past but he could guess, in fact he was pretty sure Michael probably hadn’t been having a great time of it even before monsters and magic became a thing. A victim with superpowers indeed.

“Look..Michael, this isn’t right. You need to stop this, you’ve killed a lot of people. You -”

“Hahaha! I know, right!? All these fleshy bags of cultivation essence just walking around, like meals on legs! Hahaha!” Michael laughed hysterically, doubling over for a moment before focusing on Jack. “Hahaha! How do you resist! I mean….they’re just so..so so so so…delicious, so easy, you should see their faces when they feel themselves being drained! The shock and the horror, when I’m simultaneously electrocuting them and draining them of lightning essence, it's almost as delicious as the act itself.” Michael sighed happily before letting out another maniacal giggle.

Jack watched him warily.

“And now you’re here for me? What happened to being brothers? You’ve been targeting other lightning cultivators too, there’s already barely any of us around, why kill your own kind?” Jack asked, trying to stall for time as he surreptitiously but frantically pressed the radio talk button.

“Pff! Did you find out about that little detail from your police friends outside Jack?” Michael said with a scornful scoff. Jack’s heart dropped slightly. “And as for the other lightning cultivators, they were weak. Most of them are content to remain as they were, powerless, neglecting their birthright, letting the other elements run roughshod over them! Over us! Where’s their pride!? Letting the world look down on us!” Michael closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he tried to calm himself down again. He looked back at Jack and continued speaking quietly. “In my time in this world, I’ve learnt that there are really only two types of people in this world; predators and prey.” He looked down at Jack with narrowed eyes.

“Uh huh, and what do you think I am?” Jack asked calmly.

“You? I think you’re a stepping stone, this world only respects strength, and I need to step on you to get more strength. That's just how this world works, my only regret is that it took me this long to realise that. It’s nothing personel Jack, even though I don’t look up to you anymore you should know that I will always respect you, despite everything,” Michael told him sadly as he raised his hands.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Jack didn’t wait, the police weren’t coming. He pulsed some energy into his left arm and quickly formed a blade of light before stabbing it into Michael’s chest in one rapid motion. Michael gasped in shock and pain, looking down at the blade of light embedded in his chest with a look of surprise. Jack yanked the blade out and stabbed Michael again several more times, making sure to do as much damage as possible.

Michael recoiled back in fear and confusion and pain as Jack repeatedly stabbed him, choking on his own blood. He clumsily swung his fists at Jack but the blows lacked power. Jack bore him to the ground and mercilessly stabbed a short blade of light into Michael’s heart, finishing him off.

Jack stood up and looked down at Michael’s dying form, covered in blood. He felt strangely detached at the sight, he was used to this sort of death by now, human death.

“Predators hunt helpless animals, you should’ve tried your hand at proper hunting before you came after someone like me, Michael,” Jack told him. Michael’s eyes focused on Jack for a moment before they went dull and lifeless.

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

“There you are! That's it mister! We are not letting you leave our sight ever again!” Nate declared as Jack wandered into their living quarters back at the Dire Woods outpost a day later.

“Are you alright Jack? They only told us vaguely what happened, something about a dungeon and a serial killer?” Stacey asked in concern.

“Did you get yourself kidnapped again?” Katie asked in amusement.

“No!” Jack objected indignantly. He was in danger of that becoming a running joke. “For your information, I forced a dungeon into critical mass, escaped from said dungeon and then took down a serial killer. All in a day's work,” he said smugly, but also humbly whilst pretending to examine his fingernails.

Team Meredith looked at him incredulously for a few moments before they all spoke up at the same time.

As they clamoured with questions about his recent adventures and misadventures, Jack got out his pager and linked it to the plasma screen in their living room. He brought up the images of him with the giant mutated ogre from the boss room and the one with the dungeon sky that looked like the backdrop from a mad god’s nightmare.

“Whoa! What is that thing!?” Katie asked in wonder at the sight of the ogre.

“That, I think, was the result of a dungeon very desperate to kill me. It’s the ogre boss from the Clifford’s Hill dungeon, but mutated,” Jack explained smugly.

“Look at all its arms, and its weapons! Did you fight that thing up close?” Meredith asked in wonder. Jack nodded with a pleased smile. “Oh wow, I would’ve liked a crack at that thing, imagine duelling that,” Meredith murmured quietly, looking at the ogre with covetous eyes.

“How did you force Clifford’s Hill into critical mass Jack?” Noah asked curiously.

“Well I….” he hesitated, still not really knowing how to explain to his friends. “Erm…there’s a little trick I learned I could do a while back, involving dungeons,” he began, eventually just deciding to tell the truth and deal with it. “You see….it turns out that if I use live dungeon monsters to cultivate from, it gives me a massive boost in power for my core, far more so than any other non-dungeon creature.” Jack nervously scratched the side of his head, waiting for his friend’s reaction.

They all looked at him in perplexment.

“The dungeon sensed you were stealing essence from it rather than letting the slain monster’s energy cycle back to it, and you thought to hide this from us?” Noah asked, his tone neutral.

“Erm..maybe. I didn’t think you guys would…I dunno….maybe it would creep you out?”

“Why would it creep us out?” Stacey asked in confusion.

“Well, with all this stuff lately about lightning cultivators potentially using humans and in some cases actually using humans as cultivation essence, I didn’t really want to reinforce a negative stereotype. And….maybe, just maybe, I…..value your opinion of me,” he mumbled in embarrassment.

“Aww! Is that your way of saying you love us?” Katie gloated.

“We love you too Jack!” Nate made fun of him.

Stacey, Meredith and Noah simply chuckled.

“.......Nevermind, fuck you guys…” Everyone laughed and after a moment, he joined in with them.

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

“Early yesterday evening, it has been confirmed that the notorious serial killer that had killed many people throughout the country, is dead. The killer’s name was Michael Westen, a thirty six year old man from Hull, he was a former retail assistant and a lightning cultivator. His earliest known victim was a young woman in Hull last year and he had since gone on to kill at least one hundred and thirty seven people in less than twelve months, making him one of Britain’s most prolific serial killers.”

Jack and the others lounged in the canteen on the mezzanine area, watching the tv. It was late evening and a special news broadcast was playing. The story brought up an image of Michael on screen.

“Westen’s rampage was finally brought to an end when the police and the UK hunters guild devised a plan to trap him. They approached the famed first lightning cultivator, Jack Errant, and asked him to feign illness and injury in order to lure Westen to York Hospital. It was there that Westen and Errant got into a confrontation that led to Westen losing his life. The police have confirmed that Westen was working alone and that he had no accomplices. He is survived by a younger sister and a younger brother. This marks the end of the lightning cultivator and serial killer, Michael Westen.” The story faded to show pictures of the various victims Michael had killed during his killing spree.

“Was he strong then? Was it a hard fight?” Stacey asked.

Jack shrugged. “There wasn’t a fight at all, I just leaned over and stabbed him in the chest with a blade of light.” Jack raised his left arm a bit and conjured a small blade that hovered over his hand. The runes covering his arm glowed very slightly.

“Just like that?” Nate asked, sounding almost disappointed.

“Yup, he seemed to genuinely believe I was injured and helpless, I also think he’d spent most of his time stalking helpless non-combatants rather than fighting and cultivating from monsters,” Jack explained. “I don’t think he’d know what to do if his victim was capable of fighting back.”

“Hmph, so he was a true sadist then, a coward, only targeting the weak and helpless,” Noah said in contempt.

Jack nodded sadly, despite everything, he didn’t feel any satisfaction from putting Michael down. He didn’t know much about the man, but he could sense that there was more to the story than Michael simply deciding to start killing innocent people for power. Things don’t deteriorate just like that, there’s always a backstory, everyone has history and a reason for what they do. Maybe it was easier for Jack to empathise with Michael; they’d started off in a similar positions, as had all other lightning cultivators. But they all had a choice in how they wanted to progress and the choice Michael had made was one that could arguably be considered evil. Jack had even heard some police officers refer to Michael as the ‘vampire’. Again, that was the sort of thing Jack had been wanting to avoid.

He sighed, not wanting to think about it anymore. He just wanted to put the whole affair behind him.

With any luck though, his actions would contribute to a better overall reputation for lightning cultivators. However it seemed their potential for ‘vampirism’ was completely overlooked by the UK hunters guild and similar institutions around the world in the face of their earning potential. There almost seemed to be a goldrush by various monster hunting agencies in order to find and recruit as many lightning elements as possible. They were often quickly trained up and sent into the field so that they could maximise the loot gained by hunting teams.

It wasn’t all good though, Jack thought back to the conversation he’d had with a fellow lightning element, Rickey, the previous day before he’d returned to the outpost…..

“Hey Rickey! Long time no see!” Jack greeted Rickey cheerfully as he walked into North Yorkshire branch headquarters again after killing Michael. Rickey was a fellow lightning cultivator, recruited and trained by the guild.

“Hi Jack, nice to see you again,” Rickey responded tiredly with a small smile, though it didn’t reach his eyes. In fact he seemed a little glum.

“You okay man? You seem a little down? And what are you doing up here anyway? Shouldn’t you still be down in London? Finishing up your training?” Jack asked in confusion. He then noticed that Rickey wasn’t alone, behind him were two young women of a similar age to Jack and Rickey.

“Pff! Training he calls it!” one of the girls snorted angrily.

“Hm?” He looked questioningly at Rickey.

Rickey grimaced. “We…..left, the three of us, this is Alex and Tasha by the way.” He motioned to the two women behind him. They nodded to Jack in greeting.

“What do you mean you left? You’ve left the guild?” Jack asked in surprise.

“No no, we haven’t left the guild. We just left London and that…training programme they were putting us through. We decided to transfer to another branch and start our hunting careers, we were actually headed to Blackpool before we got asked to divert here for some police thing but apparently we’re not needed now.” Rickey frowned in confusion and shrugged.

Jack thought he knew what the police thing was but didn’t say anything, simply shrugging as well.

Instead he asked, “What was up with the training? I thought the guild put together some special programme for you guys to turn you all into elite hunters or something.” He grinned in amusement. Though the two girls frowned angrily at that.

“Urgh…it…we had to leave. What they were doing…it didn’t feel right,” Rickey tried to explain.

Jack didn’t say anything, he frowned in concern and allowed Rickey to continue.

“It all started out okay, they put us through basic weapons and fitness training, they made us sit in classrooms and learn how to identify various monsters and magical ingredients and how to harvest it all. They even started a class on learning runes,” Rickey began explaining.

“Wow, that sounds pretty good. Every other hunter has to just learn things on the fly you know, me included,” Jack told him.

“I know that, to be honest, with what came after, I wish we’d been given that option too, but at least they let us transfer out in the end,” Rickey grimaced.

“Okay, so what happened then?”

“It was when we started to cultivate, that was when things started to go downhill. They would bring us small dead mutated animals at first and that wasn’t so bad, but then they started bringing in more and more. Then the animals got larger, then they started bringing in live animals, and not mutated ones either, but normal ones, like cows and bulls. Then they started bringing in live monsters that they’d captured, goblins mainly but other stuff too. They just kept bringing more stuff in, everyday, sometimes it felt like we were cultivating everyday all day,” Rickey explained, sounding sick just talking about it.

“Oh wow, putting aside the whole live animal thing, that doesn’t sound healthy. I get god awful headaches and really bad muscle cramps if I overdo it when I’m cultivating.” Jack winced in sympathy.

“So do I, we all do! But they didn’t care, they just gave us strong pain killers and muscle relaxants and told us to keep going! It was like they were trying to force feed us!” Rickey’s eyes went wide.

“Seriously? What are they doing down there? Why do they need you to cultivate so much? You can’t rush these things.” He hadn’t heard anything about this until now, what was the guild playing at? “Is it only you three? There were other lightning elements, weren't there?” he asked

“Yeah…..you remember Jason? He and most of the others stayed behind, they didn’t mind the training, in fact Jason seemed to love it.” Rickey shook his head in despair.

“Oh yeah?” He remembered Jason, the supremely arrogant new lightning cultivator who seemed to have a bone to pick with Jack.

“Yeah, you…you should be careful of him, Jack. Some of them..I swear all that cultivation has messed with their heads, they’re a little….…off. And they’re strong too, like really really strong. I once saw Jason blowing apart large solid blocks of concrete with bolts of lightning during a practice session recently,” Rickey explained worryingly.

“.....oh.” Blowing apart blocks concrete? Okay, how strong was concrete? Could he do that? That sounded worrying.

“Yeah, like I said, be careful of him Jack. Jason really doesn’t like you, sometimes I hear him muttering about you under his breath,” Rickey warned him.

“.....oh.”

“Anyway, we’re gonna go now. It was nice catching up with you, see ya.” With that Rickey, Alex and Tasha bid him goodbye and left the building, leaving Jack standing there in the entrance, waving goodbye.

The next day, back in the outpost canteen building.

The news was just wrapping up with a story about a billionaire who’d bought a newly discovered dungeon in America, rural Pennsylvania, a year ago. Apparently, the man had lost his young daughter several years earlier, and in a desperate effort to bring her back, he’d placed her preserved corpse in the dungeon and allowed it to absorb her. From there, he’d used his money to either recruit or kidnap multiple people and essentially used them as batteries for several months to feed energy into the dungeon, making sure to never let them die. The man had hoped that the dungeon would, somehow, reproduce her for him, her memories and personality intact, and that they could both go on with their lives just like before. He did not get that, he did not get that at all.

Instead, what happened was that several small towns within rural Pennsylvania almost got overrun by a plague of dungeon spawned flesh hungry monsters in the shape of little girls. It was a complete nightmare for everyone involved, for some reason it was far more disturbing to fight monsters wearing the shape of children rather than something that actually looked like a monster.

Eventually, the dungeon breakout was dealt with through a combined effort from several American monster slayer guilds and their military. However, there was now an argument as to whether the dungeon shouldn’t just be bombed to oblivion, no one wanted anything to do with, even the slayer guild in whose territory it belonged. If nothing else however, there were now much stricter controls being put into place for the buying and selling of dungeons, as well as the monitoring of just what dungeon owners got up to with them.

Needless to say, the billionaire was investigated and arrested when it was found out what he’d been doing. However, despite the death toll of the disaster, the only charges that could actually be brought against him was kidnapping, and even that was in doubt since the man's lawyers were arguing that the people he’d used as batteries had signed contracts consenting to their treatment. It was widely thought that the man would walk away free.

The next day, Jack, Nate, Noah, Katie and Stacey were in the common room of their apartment, playing Texas hold’em poker. Meredith had been called away for something in the outpost command building.

“Just fold, Nate. He’s not bluffing,” Stacey said in exasperation. She sat back against the sofa, her cards laid out before her having already folded, impatiently waiting for Noah to win yet another round.

“He’s bluffing! I can see it!” Nate insisted, examining Noah’s face.

“Is he? I honestly can’t tell,” Jack said, also looking at Noah’s face. It looked like it was made of stone. Everyone else had already folded during that particular hand and it was just Noah and Nate along with Nate’s dwindling supply of chips. He always got excited and raised the bet, even when he had a terrible hand and barely any chips. Everyone kept having to convince him not to go ‘all in’ with almost every hand.

“I’ll never fold! I call! Show me your cards, you bastard!” Nate cried out theatrically.

Noah looked smug and placed his cards down face up, revealing a full house.

“What do you have, Nate?” Katie asked.

Nate looked stricken for a moment before grudgingly placing down his own cards. All he had was a pair.

“A pair?! That's all you had?” Stacey looked at Nate as if he were crazy.

“I was sure he was bluffing that time!” Nate protested.

“You’re always sure he’s bluffing,” Katie pointed out with a roll of her eyes. Noah continued to look smug, the only crack in his otherwise perfect poker face. “This is why Noah always wins, you’re always giving him your chips.” Katie told him as Noah swept the table and took the current pot into his large pile of chips with a satisfied smile.

“No I’m not!”

The rest of the group was saved from the inevitable argument when Meredith finally returned.

“Hello everyone! I’m back!” She greeted them with a happy smile.

Everyone greeted her back.

“Oh dear, blue really isn’t her colour, tut tut,” the Echo Lily randomly spoke up from the kitchen counter, sounding very judgemental and tutting in disappointment. That stopped Meredith in her tracks for a moment as she looked down at her blue jacket. She didn’t know if that truly was just a random comment and she just happened to be wearing blue, but nevertheless her face went red and took the jacket off before scrunching it up in her hands self consciously as she sat down with the others.

“So erm..yeah, we got tapped for another priority job. It's a big one too.” Meredith put her smile back on, though she gave the flower a nervous side eye.

“Is that why you were called to the command building? What did they want?” Stacey asked in excitement. Everyone else leaned forward in anticipation.

“Okay so, you know that elf we captured and used as a guide a little while ago? Sumira, I think her name was?” Meredith asked them

“Mm, the hentai elf, yep.” Nate nodded.

“Yes the hen -, wait what's hentai? A hentai elf?” Meredith looked confused.

Everyone looked uncertain for a moment, some unwilling to admit they knew, others wanting to see how this would play out.

“Oh, it's just another way of saying….otherworldly,” Nate told her. They kept straight faces, wondering if Meredith would take his word for it, she could be strangely trusting and naive at times.

“Oh really? I didn’t know that, huh. Anyway, Sumira gave us some more information that the guild has decided to act upon.” Meredith placed several paper documents on the table. “But I’m not allowed to tell you guys anything more until you sign these non-disclosure agreements,” she said as she spread the sheets of paper.

Everyone shrugged and proceeded to sign the documents without fuss, sharing the same pen. They’d all been forced to sign multiple NDA’s throughout their hunting careers for one reason or another, this was pretty much business as usual.

“Right, so then, Sumira has told us a little bit more about the Dire Woods and other places like it, as well as the way things are beyond our world,” Meredith began, everyone listened to her attentively. “Apparently, the Dire Woods and other places like it that we know as magical anomalies, they’re like….overlaps in space….places that are actually shared between multiple worlds. So, we could actually walk from our own planet of Earth to Alfheim or any other world where the Dire Woods are also growing. It's basically like entrances to the Dire Woods are growing on other worlds just like our own,” Meredith explained to the fascination of the others.

“Okay, but what causes that overlap though?” Stacey asked.

“Ah well, that's the thing, apparently, it's caused by the World Tree, Yggdrasil, from our own ancient Norse myths. Places like the Dire Woods tend to pop up because a new branch or a root of the tree has grown, creating a new connection between worlds. Sumira thinks that's what happened to us, a new root or branch reconnected us to Yggdrasil and other worlds, thereby introducing magic to our world,” Meredith said in excitement.

“You said reconnected, not connected,” Noah pointed out.

“Yeah, the guild thinks that we were connected by Yggdrasil before, because of our past mythologies, though it must’ve been thousands and thousands of years ago. Also, you know the Crimson Gorge in Cornwall? Yeah, we told Sumira about that place and she said that sounded like a dead root, that for some reason that happens sometimes, that maybe that was the reason we lost our connection to Yggdrasil a long time ago. But now with our reconnection, the place we know as the Red Gorge has appeared. My mother took me to just within the entrance once, it….was not a good place…it just stank of death and rot. No one goes in there, not even hunters.” Meredith shivered.

“Wait wait wait, hold up a ‘sec, a root or branch? As in an actual root or branch, like from a tree? I thought Yggdrasil was supposed to be erm…metaphysical or something, intangible. Like we just called it a tree to give it some representation. Are you saying it's actually a tree?” Katie asked.

“Apparently so, it's an actual tree, with bark, a trunk, roots, branches, leaves and everything, yeah. And that's sort of what the guild wants to find. Apparently, somewhere in this forest is an actual branch or root of Yggdrasil to be found. And the guild wants to find it, we’re to be part of the team that goes out,” Meredith told them.

“Wow, we get tapped for these priority missions a lot don’t we?” Nate said with a smug grin.

“That's because we have a lightning cultivator on our team. Jack is able to attune large amounts of monster harvestables and maximise our earnings,” Noah pointed out.

“Oh yeah,” Nate conceded.

It was true, they had a relatively low combined rank in terms of hunter strength due to the fact that they only had a single B ranking hunter as opposed to other teams that either had multiple B’s or A ranked hunters. However, because Jack was able to attune so much monster loot for them, their success put them firmly towards the top of the leaderboard in terms of monetary income. They were currently in direct competition with a powerful hunting team that possessed a trio of A ranked hunters.

“Anyway, we’re to go with Cheryl and another hunting team to find this root or branch, apparently the location is known to be often guarded by some extremely powerful monster so the guild wants Jack to attune it all once we’ve dealt with it,” Meredith explained.

“And when we do find the root or branch? What do we do with it? We’re not cutting it down are we?” Katie asked in concern.

“No, at least I don’t think so. But according to Sumira, anything we can harvest from Yggdrasil is pretty much the most valuable commodity in the Universe. The wood, the bark, the fruit, the leaves, the sap, even the sawdust or ash from burning it, all of it can be used in countless different ways, providing incredible powers and properties. The sap especially is supposed to be highly prized, she says it's basically pure and concentrated ‘essence’, the stuff we see monsters dissolved into, that multicoloured vapour. She also says entire religions have formed around relics that contain a piece of the tree. She told us once about this world called Ishnalia that had a leaf of Yggdrasil preserved in crystal, that world eventually got invaded and basically wiped clean of life by a powerful empire because it wanted the leaf. So yeah….the guild really really wants to find that tree.”

“Whoa, I bet the guild execs are dying to get ahold of a piece of that, no wonder they wanted us to sign an NDA. What would the other countries do if they found out Britain had access to a piece of Yggdrasil?” Jack pointed out.

“Are we the only country that has a place like the Dire Woods? Are there others?” Stacey asked in concern.

“Hmm, there are other magical anomalies throughout the world, though with this new information, they were likely not formed by a connection through Yggdrasil,” Noah responded, looking contemplative.

“What about the Amazon rainforest?” Katie suggested.

“Nah, that place is just overgrown and it's become a normal death zone, I don’t think Yggdrasil had anything to do with that, barring the introduction of magic and monsters that is,” Jack said. Almost the entirety of the northern part of South America was now covered in the Amazonian rainforest, countries like Brazil, Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador and Peru had almost entirely been swallowed up. The rapid expansion of the rainforest and its monstrous denizens had only barely been halted by colossal amounts of napalm and other incendiaries being poured liberally onto the forest’s southern edges by the southern countries like Argentina and Uruguay. Its northern expansion had been halted by the Panama canal, though the northern countries like Costa Rica and Nicaragua were keeping their eyes on it as well as looking at their own rainforests with suspicion.

However, it was known that people were still living within the rainforest, but that they were completely hostile to anything outside it. Before they’d been evacuated and enveloped by the rainforest, the villages bordering it had actually been raided by strangely clad humans. The denizens of these villages had been captured and dragged into the rainforest, never to be seen again.

“What about that massive mountain that appeared out of nowhere in the middle of Greece? That thing just sort appeared, like the Dire Woods,” Stacey suggested.

“Maybe, I suppose it doesn’t really have to be a forest or woodland that grows around an Yggdrasil outcropping, it could be anything I guess,” Meredith said with a shrug.

Sometime ago, a large singular mountain had appeared in the centre of the Greek peninsula, several towns had disappeared beneath it. It was a tall mountain at over six thousand metres above sea level and could be seen for miles around, dominating the horizon. The top was almost perpetually shrouded in mist, no matter the weather, but there were times when the mist thinned enough for the numerous people surrounding it to be able to spot what looked like ruins or buildings perched on the mountain peak.

Many individuals believed that this was the fabled Mount Olympus, the home of the greek gods from ancient greek mythology, even though there was already a mountain called mount Olympus further north east nearer Greece’s eastern coast. People had attempted to both climb the mountain or simply fly to the top, both endeavours always resulted in failure.

From the base of the mountain all the way up, it was infested with monsters and mutated animals, all expeditions to climb the mountain had failed and often ended in death or injury. All attempts to approach the mountain from helicopter or plane always ended in the aircraft crashing or having to turn back. The wind immediately surrounding the mountain was known to be incredibly violent and so far, no aircraft had managed to punch through it. Those aircraft that got the closest however, were never seen again because out of nowhere, massive localised thunderstorms had formed around them and essentially devoured the aircraft. It was as if the mountain had a self defence mechanism surrounding it.

Despite the danger, the mountain was generally fine if you left it alone and didn’t try to go up. However, its plethora of monsters and magical materials did provide the local Greek monster hunters a very decent living, so the surroundings of the mountain contained a growing city, with hunters periodically setting out to explore the base of the mountain and bring back its treasures.

One of the main issues however, was that many people in Greece had begun to turn to the old religion of worshipping the ancient Greek gods, such as Zeus, Athena, Aphrodite and so on. That may not be so bad normally, there were probably a scattered few worshippers of those gods even back in normal times several years ago, but in this day and age it seemed to be becoming more and more popular. Some of the various cults that had sprung up worshipping one god another were actually in direct conflict with the Greek Orthodox Church, who had been denouncing the emerging religion as blasphemy, heresy and paganism.

The point was, there were a lot of different places popping up out of nowhere.

“So anyway, when are we going?” Nate asked eagerly, always ready for a good fight.

“And where are we going? Do we even have a direction?” Stacey added on.

“We do actually, do you guys remember that bit of woodland between here and the old camp in the cave? The area we always had to be careful going through because it was known to be the territory of some powerful beast?” Meredith asked them.

“Oh hey I remember! Please tell me we finally get to take on the Dire Woods Tyrant!” Nate’s eyes gleamed with excitement.

Meredith simply smiled and nodded.