Chapter 10

The next morning, the team were assembling in the canteen building, ready to go out into the Woods for the expedition. The previous day they had accepted the job through the terminal and had been promptly sent a message through their pages that they were to meet the surveyor they were to escort in the canteen at eight in the morning.

It was a few minutes to eight and Jack was walking alone down the avenue leading to the canteen, the other team members were generally a little slow at getting going in the morning. Only Katie had been out earlier than him because she’d received a message about someone retrieving a bunch of her arrows.

Jack stepped into the canteen and looked around, he saw Katie speaking with several hunters at the far end of the hall past the bar. The canteen actually had a similar set up to the guild hall in York, a large circular bar in the centre of the hall surrounded by tables and chairs with a mezzanine area up top.

Jack walked over to Katie, but as he approached he could tell that not all was well.

“Are you crazy!? They're mine!” Katie exclaimed indignantly.

“Ah but how do we know that? There could easily be another hunter out there that uses water crystal infused broadhead barbed arrows,” a large hunter dressed in plate and monster hide said, smirking down at her, he was holding a handful of what looked to be near twenty of Katie’s arrows in his hands.

“Everything okay here?” Jack asked as he walked up. He looked between an angry looking Katie and several other hunters all smirking at her.

“Jack! This douche has my arrows!” Katie pointed an accusing finger at the large hunter holding them.

“Well that's good right? We got them back, honestly I thought that whole job was a bit of a shot in the dark really.” Jack shrugged cheerfully.

“Oh not so fast my guy, I never agreed to actually give them back to you,” the hunter arrogantly said.

“........why not?” Jack looked at them suspiciously.

“The price has changed, we want two thousand for each arrow,” he told Jack with a smirk.

Katie scoffed angrily.

“Two thousand!? The job was for one hundred each!” Jack looked at them like they were crazy.

“Well now we’re renegotiating, one hundred was a bit low wasn’t it? I mean, we had to risk life and limb to go out into the Woods just to find these things, I think that deserves some extra compensation don’t you?” he said in exaggeration.

“Risked life and limb? It was set up as an ongoing job! You weren’t supposed to actually go out looking for the arrows specifically! You just had to pick up any you came across while you were doing other things! Those are my arrows you fuckers!!” Katie screamed at them, losing her temper.

Jack placed a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. “I think they know that Katie, they’re just trying to….what's the word I’m looking for here? Extort us? Yeah, I think extort is probably the appropriate word here.” He stared at the other hunters, they grinned back at him completely unashamed.

“Well, whatever word you want to use, these arrows are ours now, we found them, we picked them up. If you want them back then you’ll have to match our price. Or maybe we’ll go somewhere else to sell ’em, they’ve got water crystal infused into the arrow heads don’t they?” the hunter asked Jack with a smirk.

“You picked them up huh?” Jack looked around, the canteen was relatively empty at this time in the morning, but it was starting to fill up, he had to act fast before there were too many witnesses.

The hunters facing them were stood up, the smirking hunter holding onto Katie’s arrows was stood next to a metal chair. Jack innocently placed his boot onto the seat of the chair before then tilting it backwards so that the metal backrest came into contact with the hunter's groin area. He sent a brief surge of electricity from his core into his boot which travelled through the chair and you get the idea.

“Argh!” The hunter gave out a very high pitched yelp of pain before stumbling backwards and falling onto the floor, he dropped the arrows and clutched at his groin. Jack quickly knelt down and snatched up the arrows which were conveniently bundled up together with wire.

“Hey! Look what I found! Wow, that was convenient! So if I pick up the arrows they now belong to me right? Isn’t that how this works? Katie! I found your arrows!” Jack grinned at them before waving the bundle of arrows at Katie, they glared back angrily from where they were crouched around the hunter he’d just electrocuted.

“Hahahahaha! That's what you get you greedy bastards!” Katie cackled and pointed at them. A couple of the hunters got up and reached for their weapons.

Having felt like they’d worn out their welcome, Jack grabbed Katie and dragged her away, they made a hasty exit out of the canteen while Katie gleefully continued hurling insults at the group of hunters.

Jack also called out to them just before leaving. “We’ll finalise the initial payment at a later date!” After that they stepped outside and came face to face with a surprised looking Meredith, Nate, Stacey and Noah who had just been about to step inside.

“What are you two up to now?” Noah squinted at them in suspicion.

“Nothing, it was just a bit hot and stuffy in there, that’s all,” Jack said innocently. Katie nodded in agreement but kept quiet.

“Ah! So you got the arrows then? That’s good,” Meredith smiled as she made to move towards the door to the canteen.

“Er yeah, um anyway, are we ready to go? I think we should get going.” Jack subtly blocked her path.

“Er, not yet, we still need to meet up with the surveyor we’re to escort.” She looked at him in confusion when he wouldn’t let her pass.

“No need guys, I’m here now,” a familiar voice came from behind them.

The team turned around and saw Sam the surveyor walking towards them. She was wearing her usual long poncho that subtly shifted colours to match her surroundings and also wore a large rucksack on her back.

“So, how you guys been? Heard ya been busy.” Sam gave them a relaxed smile.

The group mumbled an affirmative.

“We’ve been doing quite well, thank you Sam, are you the surveyor we’re to escort?” Meredith asked politely.

“Yep! That’s me, we’re off into the great unknown today kids!” Sam told them happily.

“Great! Shall we go now?” Jack suggested.

“What’s the hurry?” Stacey asked on suspicion.

“Nothing,” he replied innocently.

“Hm? Well fine, if you’re ready then I’m ready. Let’s go!” With that Sam hefted her rucksack and made her way to the gates. Everybody else followed her. They were all fully equipped both with their weapons, armour and tools, but also with a similar rucksack to Sams. They were heading into the unforgiving wilderness for two weeks and needed to be fully prepared.

After a few minutes of walking through the outpost they were out of the main gates and approaching the gloomy treeline.

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Bzzzzzzz. SLAP. Jack slapped the back of his neck and immediately regretted it. It seemed everything in the Dire Woods had a case of gigantism, the insects were no exception. His hand and neck were now covered in some sort of yellow and purple sticky goo and it started dribbling down his back, he wiped it off as best he could on a tree as he walked along with everyone else.

They’d been hiking through the Woods for about five days now, beforehand the hunts and jobs they’d been on had only ever taken them half a day at most away from the outpost, so this was the furthest they’d ever gone.

Despite being immersed in it for days now, the alien sights, sounds and smells of the Dire Woods never got any less strange to Jack. There were plenty of things that seemed similar to what might be found in the outside world, but for the most part the flora and fauna was just too different from what they were used to.

For instance, yesterday they had made a brief foray into a small forest of glowing, giant mushrooms. It had seemed amazing at first, the light was a welcome change to the perpetual twilight and Sam was excitedly documenting everything and noting down the various resources that could be harvested or investigated by a follow up team. However that excitement then turned to wariness when the team began to notice all the animal and monster corpses at the bases of the giant mushrooms, all covered in smaller, normal sized mushrooms. Whatever residual excitement was left swiftly disappeared when one of the giant mushrooms which was about twice as tall as a human suddenly let out a thick cloud of spores which Nate got a lungful of.

Nate immediately began choking and coughing violently. He collapsed to his knees and his face turned red then blue. Everyone gathered around him in concern. However he then began breathing out a thick black smoke which got thicker and thicker, turning to hot sparks before becoming a full on flame, he breathed that out in one long angry exhalation. When he was done he took a deep ragged breath in then out before his breathing turned back to normal. He staggered to his feet and spat on the ground, throwing off the concern and attempts by the others to make him sit down, he then punched the offending giant mushroom in its stalk before blasting it with a continuous gout of fire. The mushroom was burnt to a crisp after Nate had finished venting his frustrations on it.

The next morning, further along the trail, everyone was forced to clean and scour all their gear because mushroom spores had gotten into everything and were aggressively growing in various places, not something you want to wake up to. The team was also forced to flood their bodies with their own elemental energies in an effort to cleanse the fungal spores that had found root inside them. Nate and Katie were able to essentially bake themselves and their equipment with small amounts of fire or hot air to cook the spores, Meredith and Stacey could likewise conjure small amounts of water and heat it up to kill the spores. However some of their equipment and supplies were a little worse for wear afterwards. Jack didn’t really have any issues and was simply able to channel lightning through his body and everything he had on him, effectively killing everything. Sam, being a wind element and a practising cultivator, also didn’t have any issue.

Noah however, did have some problems, he couldn’t exactly bathe or coat himself in his own element, which was earth. Instead, after much debate amongst the group he had to settle for allowing the others to sterilise his gear for him and then let Stacey conjure a cloud of extremely hot steam for him to wash off in and then to pour hot water into his lungs to wash them out, several times. If he wasn’t a cultivator then that sort of treatment would probably have killed him or left him horribly burned and in need of emergency medical care. But because he was a cultivator, he was made of sterner stuff, however, taking a shower and essentially being drowned in near boiling water definitely had him on his knees for a while afterwards. In fact, if none of them had been cultivators, they would’ve all been dead, probably a while ago. At the very least they would’ve all been mounds of mushrooms if they hadn’t been able to fight off the fungal spores they’d been infected with.

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After their morning ablutions, the team was following an excited surveyor. They had found scattered evidence of stone ruins along the path they trod, not much, just blocks of old stone overgrown with vegetation here and there that looked like they'd been shaped and carved by some sort of masonry. They continued following the trail of stone for a couple of hours until the loose, scattered rubble began to give way to the remnants of stone structures.

“Ruins!! Fuck yeah! Jackpot babyyyyy!!” Sam pumped her fist into the air in excitement.

Everyone looked around, there wasn’t a single stone over a foot in height but what they’d walked into were clearly the remnants of stone buildings. It all looked like an angry giant had rampaged through and destroyed everything but they were definitely structures of some description. There also appeared to be more intact structures further along, it seemed they had set foot in some kind of abandoned settlement.

“I knew it! God I’m good!” Sam continued to celebrate with herself as she skipped forward into the ruins like a child in a candy store. “Who’s the greatest? It's me! Who’s the smartest? Me again! Who’s the best? Oh it's me alright! Hahahaha!” she sang to herself as she gleefully took pictures with her pager of various ruined structures.

“More like who’s the luckiest,” Jack murmured quietly to the others.

“Yeah, didn’t we just pick a random direction and start walking? When we asked which way she wanted to go, she just shrugged,” Katie whispered indignantly. Everyone muttered in agreement.

“C’mon slowpokes, get a move on!” Sam yelled at them from further into the ruins.

The group slowly walked through the ruined buildings, most of the structures didn’t rise above hip height and everything was overgrown with vegetation indicating that whatever had happened there, had happened a long time ago. However, up ahead were clusters of large trees, not the monstrously gigantic sort that dominated the Dire Woods, but more like the size of large oaks or smaller redwoods. Amongst the trees were more buildings that appeared to have survived whatever happened to the rest of the area, or they were more intact at least. Luminescent plants and fungi grew everywhere, providing light and a rather eerie atmosphere.

As they reached what appeared to be the centre of the settlement, they got a closer look at the buildings that were still standing, they were of a completely alien design. Oh they had walls, roofs and even doorways, but at the same time it was clear nothing human had a hand in their design.

The stone looked like it had been both hewn and grown at the same time into specific shapes to match the designs of an alien mind. It was strange, even though the buildings sort of matched the general size and dimensions of what one might find in a human settlement, Jack couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of…..otherness in what he was surrounded by.

The buildings were single storey for the most part and amongst the grey stone were a variety of different, dull, faded colours from red to green to purple and yellow, looking both natural and artificial at the same time. Short, twisted spires topped many of the buildings, weaving their way amongst the tree branches.

However, it wasn’t the strange architecture that captured Jack’s attention, it was the runes. They were everywhere, countless examples of runic script covering many different surfaces, from over the tops of doorways down to the surfaces of paving stones.

Jack knelt down and proceeded to examine and document everything for his own notes alongside Sam.

“Oh great, now they're both geeking out,” Nate commented.

“Okay everyone, we’ll make a search of the area and make sure it's clear. Noah, take Katie and go east, Nate come with me, we’ll go west. Meet back here in half an hour. Erm Jack? You….you stay with Sam,” Meredith spoke up.

Everyone agreed and got to it. Jack mumbled a distracted agreement without really paying attention. When everyone was gone, Jack suddenly looked up to Sam.

“Did someone say my name?” he asked a minute after everyone had left.

“Dunno,” Sam mumbled without looking up, concentrating on taking a tracing of a carving on a nearby wall.

Jack shrugged before going back to what he was doing. This was an incredible find! There were countless examples of runes wherever he looked, whatever civilization these ruins and runes came from clearly used them as some sort of common language. He recognised plenty of script but could also see a fair few more symbols that he’d never seen before either, and in such patterns also. He’d seen examples of runic patterns and constructs from a variety of different sentient monsters including goblins, orcs, naga and gnolls; they all seemed to use particular runes in particular patterns, but now here were countless examples of something completely new.

This was definitely a hell of a find, no known sentient monster species could be responsible for this place.

Half an hour later while Jack was taking pictures of as much runic script as he could and Sam was similarly lost in her own efforts, the rest of the team marched back to where they’d left them both.

“Hey guys, did you run into any trouble? It was all clear on our end,” Meredith greeted Noah and Katie.

“There were no monsters or other wildlife in the area, however we did happen upon an interesting structure,” Noah told her and Katie nodded happily.

“Mm hm, it goes deep underground,” Katie added.

“A dungeon!?” Nate spoke up excitedly.

“Nope, just a normal underground structure, still interesting though,” Noah told him.

“Is it though?” Nate asked, voice laced with heavy scepticism.

“We should check it out,” Meredith said. “Jack? Sam? Did you hear that, we’ve found something over there,” she told the still distracted Jack and Sam who both looked up.

They both looked up with interest and followed along. The group came to a larger, two storey structure that had a variety of interesting carvings on the face of the building, the carvings depicted some sort of humanoid figures in various poses or performing various actions. It didn’t look like a primitive attempt at art work but rather something more elegant and sophisticated, however it also seemed rather abstract and Jack couldn’t quite tell what was being represented or depicted.

The group stopped just outside the large, wide entrance and allowed Katie to use her ability to sense within the structure. She reported the all clear and everyone cautiously stepped forward.

The inside of the stone building was one large chamber, their boots echoed into the silence, the chamber was dark until several pale, weak light sources seemed to flicker to life, like an old light bulb being turned on. The light sources were coming from scattered points along the walls, however they were extremely weak and barely provided any illumination at all. Some of the lights flickered before dimming and going out again. Everyone took out their flashlights.

Jack inspected the nearest light source along the wall next to the doorway and saw they were glowing crystals embedded in the walls along with tiny runes written around the crystals in a circle. He took a picture.

The large room was empty except for a set of stairs going down below ground level, descending into darkness. After exchanging looks and nods, they followed the steps downwards. Several lights flicked on automatically, as if reacting to their presence similarly to the ones upstairs, however some of the lights also seemed to fail and flickered off again.

They walked downwards for about thirty metres until they reached the bottom, they shone their lights out into the surrounding darkness but couldn’t see anything. However, again more lights seemed to react to their presence and began to come on. The weak light illuminated an even larger chamber than the one above, however the light was still dim, with the far walls barely visible.

In the centre of the chamber, illuminated by weak white light shining down, was a large raised pedestal surrounded by four square pillars extending up from the floor to the ceiling.

Everybody’s eyes were immediately drawn to the centre of the chamber, they slowly approached. As they drew nearer, they saw the raised pedestal was in fact not a pedestal at all, but was actually a sarcophagus.

The sarcophagus lay horizontally and had no lid, it was open, displaying its occupant. With bated breath everyone slowly climbed the two steps up to the raised platform and looked down at the sarcophagus as they drew level with it.

The occupant of the sarcophagus was dead, fortunately. At this point Jack half expected whatever it was to suddenly come to life, its eyes snapping open, its mouth opening to reveal razor sharp fangs and then attack them in frenzy. He only wished he could feel so active when first waking up. Fortunately none of that happened.

The corpse, because that's what it definitely was (Jack was keeping a very close eye on it), was humanoid, tall and very slim with grey, wrinkled, desiccated skin and long white hair, it seemed well preserved in comparison to the age of the ruins above. It looked a little over two metres tall and very slim, though that was likely due to desiccation. Its features were interesting however; it had two closed eyes, a mouth and a nose, similar to a human, but at the same time its features seemed entirely alien, Jack couldn't quite put his finger on why. Perhaps the still living examples of whatever this being was looked more like a human and the off puttingly alien features were simply the grave’s pallor.

The group gazed down upon it, somewhat mesmerised by its features. However, they weren’t allowed much time to dwell because all around them, the sound of cracking, snapping and scraping began to echo throughout the chamber. Immediately the hunters went on guard and searched for the source of noise.

At first they couldn’t pinpoint where the noises were coming from as they seemed to be coming from all around them as well as both above and below. However, a particularly large crack drew Jack’s attention up towards one of the four pillars, where he saw countless cracks forming in the surface, spreading to cover much of the pillar. All the other pillars also had many cracks spreading over their own surfaces.

Everyone tensed up and began to back off towards the stairs, suddenly something broke off and dislodged itself from near the top of the pillar and dropped to the ground. At first it simply seemed to be pieces of stone, but then with a strange rattle, it shifted and with a mechanical rattling it raised several limbs and got up from the ground.

Whatever it was, it stood at chest height, stooped over on two legs with two bladed appendages for arms. It was made of the same stone as the pillar and by the blocky rectangular edges of its various parts, it looked like it had been folded up to be part of the pillar until something woke it up.

The creature stood immobile for a few seconds, silent except for a faint whirring and clicking coming from within it. Suddenly, glowing red lines appeared, covering its body in a crimson network, it began moving again and swung around to face the group of hunters. A great mass of glowing red lines simultaneously lit up, covering all four of the pillars up to the very top.

“Wow Katie, this really is a great find,” Nate spoke up with a grin as he got his sword ready, lighting it on fire, adding a fiery glow to the chamber.

Scores of similar creatures began dropping from the pillars in a great clatter of stone before rising again and turning to face them. At some unknown signal, every stone creature suddenly rushed towards them.

Being used to this sort of thing by now, the hunters reacted as they always did. Katie began firing arrows into the mass of creatures, Meredith unleashed a pressurised jet of water into them and Nate released a blast of fire. Everyone spread out and attacked.

Jack unhooked his axe and channelled a surge of lightning into his body. The first stone creature reached him, it leapt up and attempted to slice him open with its bladed arms. Jack deftly dodged backwards before sweeping his axe upwards, his axe bit into it and the discharge of lightning finished it off. It crumbled into a pile of rubble.

Straightaway another couple took its place and launched themselves at him. He was forced backwards, taking several blows to his armour before he managed to deal with his attackers. Again, as soon as he was finished, more stone constructs took their place.

The hunters of team Meredith became separated and surrounded, spread out throughout the chamber. Noah and Katie were fighting together which had become a routine for them, Noah was guarding the stairs, crushing all comers with his hammer while Katie shot arrow after arrow into the swarm. The other hunters meanwhile allowed themselves to become surrounded whilst dealing out death at everything that attacked. The darkness was lit up by Nate’s red fiery sword and bursts of flame as well as Jack’s cold blue lightning arcing around his body and axe.

Jack allowed the hot cold feeling of the surging lightning within him to fuel his strength and speed, it seeped into his brain and everything slowed down. The dozens of stooped over constructs continued to charge at him as he lashed out, his axe created crackling blue arcs of electricity as it cleaved through the onrushing enemies. He couldn’t help but allow a smile creep onto his face at the beauty of it all.

All too soon it was over, the last of the stone constructs were defeated and now the floor of the large chamber was covered in loose rubble. The adrenaline and power of his core slowly drained away, leaving Jack with a headache and spasming muscles. He reached into his belt for some painkillers and a swig from his water bottle.

At the other side of the chamber, Nate let out a satisfied sigh and planted his sword down on the floor with a metallic thump that echoed throughout the hall. Everyone else breathed heavily, getting their wind back.

“Nice work guys! Very nice!” Sam stepped back into the chamber from the stairs which she’d retreated up when the fighting began.

“What are these things?” Katie asked.

“Hmm, they appear to be some sort of construct rather than monsters. A form of automated defence for this place perhaps,” Noah answered.

“Yeah, yeah, automated defence. Defence for a tomb! Oh ho! This is even bigger than I thought! None of the others have ever found something like this before!” Sam skipped through the rubble back up to the sarcophagus and peered down into it. “Who are you huh?” She smiled down at the corpse almost lovingly.