Chapter 6

A day later the team was lounging in the cafeteria, they had no intention of going out on a job for the next several days and they were only required to do one job a week anyway.

When they had arrived back at base, they’d spent close to an hour in quarantine while the lab techs went over their gear and loot, looking for anything nasty they may have brought back with them.

After they’d made it out of quarantine, the tired group had triumphantly deposited their bags of Echo Lilies in the small building for sorting through loot before traipsing off to the hot springs.

However, they couldn’t get paid as nothing was being transported in or out of the Dire Woods just yet.

Currently, the team was eating, drinking and casually chatting. Noah was busy bothering Meredith about how to improve their efficiency as a team while Nate and Katie were arguing over who had the most effective combat style. Jack however, had his head in the books.

He was busy looking through his pager, looking at all the many images of runes that he’d taken and that Cheryl had sent him, all found by hunters and surveyors from humanoid and sentient monster sites. He noted everything down in various journals he’d brought along with him into the Woods; he also had several binders and books full of the same subject matter that he’d borrowed from the researchers on base. Apparently they had found various sites where runes had been inscribed within the Dire Woods and so they meticulously documented everything.

He looked at all the countless different runic characters and symbols and their myriad combinations from all the examples in his pager, there were runes on walls, animal bones, weapons, tools and much more. He then looked for repeating patterns and correlations, for runic sequences that seemed to be inscribed on specific tools or areas which could denote specific uses for the runes in question. He was certainly no linguist or scholar, but Jack thought he was making progress. He saw several runes and repeating patterns that he had a vague notion of what they might mean and how they might be used. He also saw various runes he thought he might recognise from ancient Earth mythology, but again, he was no expert.

He was especially interested in the various examples of runic sequences on weapons and tools that had been demonstrated to have observable magical effects. Apparently some of the magical effects weren’t even elemental, but something else entirely.

It was true the guild and likely other organisations were studying the same thing, likely with much more success than Jack, but he knew that anything they produced would have a prohibitive price tag. He’d actually overheard a few researchers bragging about the money they could charge people for any runic devices they developed in the future before he’d entered the Woods.

So, rather than be reliant on the guild or whatever mega corporation managed to obtain a monopoly on the stuff, he thought he would figure out how to write and use runes for himself, maybe even make it a side hustle. It was slow going though.

While Jack busily wrote the seemingly random gibberish in his journals and books, activity in the rest of the cavern around him had been picking up for a while. According to various passersby that Noah and Meredith had asked, it had something to do with the big operation to reclaim the original outpost site in several days time. Only a few people knew precisely what the plan was, but popular opinion was that it had something to do with the large machines being built near the armoury and workshops.

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A few days later, every hunter and base personnel member was present, gathered in the middle of the large cavern, just in front of the large command tent. The hunters of the Dire Woods outpost appeared to be a different sort in comparison to hunters from the outside world. Much of their equipment looked like it was composed of monster components with very little plate and chain mail, there was almost no kevlar or other synthetic material on display. All in all there looked to be about a couple dozen hunters plus maybe twice that in support personnel.

Jack and his team stood in the middle of the crowd, they watched as the outpost commander strode out of the tent and climbed onto a stone block, he looked out over them all.

“Alright! Listen up!” His voice boomed out across the cavern. “Tomorrow, the operation to retake site alpha will finally commence!” He addressed them.

Excited murmurs and whispers spread across the crowd.

“Until now, most of you have been kept in the dark about the actual plan, but now I can tell you all the specifics. At O nine hundred hours tomorrow morning, selected teams of hunters will escort our engineers and some special machines we’ve created into site alpha. From there, the machines known as dispersers, will pump out a gaseous chemical from harvested monster components which acts as a potent nerve agent,” the commander explained. The excited murmurs and whispers turned into ones of concern and confusion. Jack frowned, he didn’t really want to be anywhere near any sort of nerve agent, he was pretty sure that stuff could still kill him regardless of his cultivation level.

“Once the chemical is released,” the commander continued, raising his voice over the crowd who quietened down again. “We will have wind cultivators blow it upwards into the tree canopy above site alpha. That should take care of the majority of the Vellast drones in a single attack. After that, what's left of the rest of the hive should respond and attack us, we will then go on the offensive and engage directly in combat, at the same time several assault squads led by Cheryl Shriverston from outside the Woods will also join us in the attack. It should be a simple mop up duty from there. After that, we’ll assault the hives directly.” Jack was beginning to suspect just why the commander had kept the plan a secret from most of the outpost personnel until now. Using some sort of homebrewed, monster derived nerve gas, he somehow doubted that little detail was officially sanctioned by the guild.

“Right! Now I’ve explained the plan, each team will receive its particular instructions and role in the operation from admin, they’re set up in the canteen tent.” The commander motioned over to the canteen, everyone looked over and saw several plain clothed individuals sat at some tables with small handheld computers in front of them.

“Good luck to us all, get some rest and be assembled here tomorrow at o six hundred.” With that the commander stepped off the stone block and went back inside the command tent.

Jack, Meredith and the others all shared a mixture of looks. Katie looked worried, Noah was frowning, Meredith looked determined and Nate looked elated. Jack himself didn’t know what to feel, nervous, apprehensive, maybe just a little bit excited? He took a deep breath to calm his nerves as he followed Meredith and the others over to the canteen tent to receive their orders.

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The next day, everyone was quietly marching through the Woods. Jack stuck with his team in the middle of the pack, he was impressed, despite their bulky heavy armour, most of the Dire Woods hunters managed to move through the thick forest undergrowth with a fair amount of stealth, barely making a noise, unlike his own team.

They maintained a quick march through the forest whilst carrying large boxes filled with machine parts and within a couple of hours they were nearing their destination.

The previous day, they had received their orders to escort one of the disperser machines along with one other team. The other hunter team had a similar make up to them, half a dozen hunters made up their numbers with both men and women on the team. However most of them were fire cultivators. They gave wary glances towards Jack occasionally.

Along with the machine, they were also tasked with escorting the engineer who would operate it along with a couple of wind cultivators who would be responsible for making sure the bootleg nerve gas killed the Vellast and not them.

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There were four groups in total, each with one machine and its escorting hunters. As they got to the edge of the operation site, the difference in terrain became noticeable. The forest undergrowth became thinner and thinner before disappearing completely leaving only bare earth in between the trees and roots. They passed one last massive tree before the distortion of the Dire Woods entrance came within sight.

From there, the different groups all spread out across the large wide open area about the size of a football field immediately in front of the Dire Woods entrance. The engineers began unboxing the machines they had with them and quickly set them up. Jack hoped they wouldn’t take long, apparently the longer a party stayed in their territory the more likely the Vellast would respond to an incursion.

When the engineer in their group appeared to have finished setting up within a minute of unboxing, the machine he’d assembled looked like an assortment of metal pipes, gauges and a boxy metal casing, sort of like a small steam engine, a very very improvised crude looking steam engine. Judging from the proud look on the engineer's face as he smiled down at the machine, he wouldn’t appreciate Jack sharing that particular thought with him. Nate however, had zero filters.

“Thing looks like a piece of shit,” Nate muttered. The engineer shot him a dirty look but didn’t say anything. The engineer knelt down and proceeded to fiddle around with various levers and dials, the machine rattled slightly and began to make a hissing noise, the man waited for a moment, watching one of the gauges before twisting another dial and pulling another lever. He at least looked like he knew what he was doing anyway.

Jack looked around and saw the various groups spread around site alpha, they’d set up in a rough quadrangle covering a large area. All the other groups appeared to be doing the same as them, their hunter teams were waiting around while their engineers were knelt down by their machines, getting them ready.

A louder hiss and rattle brought Jack’s attention back to their own machine. The engineer was sweating slightly, he appeared to be ready and waiting for the agreed upon signal to start the operation. He didn’t have to wait long as two clicks came from the engineer's radio, audible to all, everyone except the engineer stepped far back from the machine. The engineer began turning several different valves and a loud hissing accompanied a barely discernible, colourless vapour which began streaming out of several nozzles on top of the machine.

Immediately, the two wind cultivators attached to their group stepped forward and began blowing a strong updraft up into the trees centering around the machine……and that was it. Nothing else happened for quite a while, well, in actual fact it was ten minutes before something else happened but when you’re preparing for a big fight, ten minutes can feel like a lifetime. The wind cultivators continuously blew a powerful updraft into the tree canopy above them, the machine also continuously spat out its deadly payload, after a few minutes they began taking shifts to allow the other to rest.

Ten minutes later, just as the tension was beginning to leave him, the first dead Vellast hit the forest floor with a loud thump and a crack snap of chitin, and then another and another. Before long, scores and scores of dead horse sized insectoids were coming down like rain and hitting the ground. In fact it occurred to the group that standing in open ground whilst dead monsters that weighed almost half a tonne fell around them wasn’t a good idea. The hunters took shelter underneath some nearby giant tree roots and after a moment the engineer and wind elements did the same. From their sheltered position, the wind users continued to generate the updraft though with some more difficulty, it was clear they were getting tired.

After close to half an hour, the rain of monster bodies lessened noticeably, but unfortunately the gas from the machine ran out before the monsters did. Not long after their machine stopped hissing and rattling, a radio call came in that Jack could hear echoing from all the other radios around the site.

“That's it people, the machines worked and now it's our turn. Engage and kill everything that has more than two legs!” The commander's voice crackled through the radio, Jack could see the commander off with one of the other groups on the other side of site alpha.

Everyone drew their weapons and got ready, a moment later the first sounds of the enemy could be heard. A faint clicking and skittering sound came from above them, it grew louder and from out of the twilight gloom above came a horde of chitin clad insectoid horrors, all pouring down the giant tree trunks around them.

Jack took a deep breath and allowed arcs of lightning to climb up from his core and travel up and down his body, lending him power and speed. He shivered slightly as the hot cold lightning energy pulled at his muscles, making them twitch and danced across his bones. The adrenaline fueled thrill of the impending fight seeped upwards from his gut and he allowed a smile to split his face. He cracked his neck as the first clump of enemies swarmed towards him.

He stepped forward and swung his lightning infused axe towards them, unleashing a shockwave of thick rippling lightning arcs which ripped into the approaching monsters. From there it was on.

Multiple elemental attacks flew out from the teams of hunters into the onrushing creatures, burning and bludgeoning them as they rushed heedlessly onwards.

Roaring flames, howling gale force winds and eruptions of stone exploded all over the battlefield, swarms of giant insects were felled under the vicious onslaught of elemental attacks but more kept coming.

Jack and his team maintained their position underneath the roots of the giant tree, they defended the gaps in between the roots which made sure the Vellast couldn’t attack them from behind or the sides. They fought hard for a long time. Everything that tried to skitter through the roots was slaughtered en masse. However they couldn’t see what had happened to the other team accompanying them.

After a while, the high number of dead Vellast began to clog up the gaps between roots, blocking any Vellast from getting at them but also trapping them and preventing them from seeing outside. Towards the end of the fight Meredith ordered Noah to use the earth to shift one of the piles so that it would topple outwards onto the enemy.

When he did so, only a few Vellast skittered inside, they rabidly attacked the team only to be cut down by Jack and Nate. When no more enemies came in, the team ventured outside and saw an entirely different sight than what they’d first seen when they’d arrived. Immediately surrounding their position, massive piles of dead Vellast were strewn around and in between the roots, their bodies were burnt, crushed and sliced up by their team. They looked outward at the rest of the battlefield and saw that almost the entirety of the forest floor was covered with slain Vellast monsters, large spikes of stone had erupted out of the ground here and there and a faint mist of multicoloured vapour and light had settled over the field of dead. Large pools of water were found here and there with dead Vellast floating on the water, Jack also saw something else of particular note.

“Hey, is that a pillar of ice over there?” He pointed in the distance, nearer towards the Dire Woods entrance. There appeared to be a giant pillar of ice looming over the battlefield, almost as tall as the Woods entrance itself. That sort of ice usually only meant one thing.

“Aunt Cheryl’s here! C’mon, let's go!” Meredith said excitedly as she slid down the treacherous terrain made up of slain monsters.

They picked their way over the field of dead creatures, their feet barely touched the ground and whenever they did, they were ankle deep in some sort of black ichor leaking from the multitudes of slain Vellast. Multicoloured light and vapour increased in density and billowed around the field, partially obscuring the view. As they got further towards the Dire Woods entrance, they saw more and more Vellast had large slivers of ice impaling them.

Eventually they made it to the foot of the Dire Woods entrance and saw the massive pillar of ice looming over them. Standing next to it was Cheryl, she had her arms folded and was tapping her foot as she gave a very unimpressed, impatient look towards the commander.

“I had to reclaim the outpost site, so I did! I came up with a plan that cost us minimal casualties!” the commander argued defensively with Cheryl.

She didn’t say anything, but continued to stare at the commander with narrowed eyes.

“I didn’t see any of you rushing to our rescue!” he tersely told her.

“No, we didn’t run to your rescue,” Cheryl replied in a quiet calm voice lined with steel. “We didn’t send squads of D ranked and C ranked hunters into the Dire Woods filled to the brim with A ranked threats. When this all started we told you to withdraw, not flee deeper into the Woods. And now this…..plan of yours….the nerve gas James? Really? I’ve never known you to take risks like this before now.” Cheryl frowned at him.

“I’ve been in this place for over a year Cheryl, it's like the old saying goes; adapt or die,” he told her tiredly. “You people at the guild were all so eager to send us here, to explore and exploit, always demanding results. Well you can’t just demand results in a god forsaken place like this and then complain about the methods we use,” he said bitterly. “Anyway, here we are, the outpost site is almost ours, just one last push and we can finally start building this place up and start sending hunter teams on proper expeditions. It's what you always wanted isn’t it!” he growled at her. She didn’t respond but continued to impassively stare at him, after a few seconds he huffed angrily before stalking away.

Meredith and her team passed the commander, he gave them a small nod as he passed.

“Heya munchkin and friends,” Cheryl greeted them with a smirk.

“Hi aunty, what was that about? Were you and the commander arguing?” Meredith asked.

“Hmm, just enquiring after a few details of the outpost commander’s plans, that's all.” She gave them a relaxed wave with her hands. “So, you guys ready for the next part?”