Chapter 13

They didn’t get far before something stopped the hunters in their path.

A goblin stepped out from behind the bushes and looked at them dumbly for a few seconds. It then proceeded to jabber at them excitedly, waving around what looked to be a crude stone axe. It babbled excitedly, raising a racket, most likely calling its friends over.

However, something else emerged from the bushes instead. A half naked man burst out from the undergrowth at a dead sprint.

“I’M A PUPPET MADE FROM APPLESAUCE AND UNICORNS!!!” he screamed before kicking the goblin like it was a football.

The goblin flew away with a squeal and impacted on a tree trunk several metres up. It flopped bonelessly to the ground and didn’t get up.

With that done the half naked man promptly doubled over and vomited before staggering away. He didn’t even notice the team of hunters staring at him in bemusement.

The man was barely wearing anything, just some rags covering his midsection. Much of his body was covered in dirt and blood, he also had various coloured runes scrawled across his body in messy script. As well as that, Jack couldn’t help but notice the torn ropes wrapped tight around his wrists and ankles.

“I think that’s our secondary objective,” Jack remarked as the man walked away like a drunk.

“Erm, will someone grab him?” Simon asked the group.

With a sigh, Noah put down his load of Silver plates and put his hand on the guy's shoulder.

“Huh? Are you the manager?” the man asked with a sleepy smile. He turned to face them and they saw his pupils were completely dilated, it was like looking into the abyss.

“Yeesh, whatever he’s on I want some,” Nate remarked.

“What’s wrong with him?” Katie spoke up.

“I think he’s high,” Hector said.

“High? How? From what? We’re in the middle of the Woods,” Mathew asked incredulously.

“I don’t think it was from his own supply,” Jack remarked. He leant down to look at the man’s torso. “These runes are Goblin script, and look at the rope around his wrists and ankles. I think he was captured by them.”

“Control the applesauce, control the world,” the man confirmed as he drooled a little on Noah’s shoulder.

“So you think they drugged him?” Simon asked.

“Maybe.” Jack shrugged.

“Well whatever, this is probably the lost surveyor, we weren’t informed about anyone else going missing out here so I suppose that’s job done. Let’s go.” Simon began moving again but he didn’t get very far as the goblins friends finally showed up.

However, the goblins seemed to be in no mood for a fight as they frantically ran across the hunters path as fast as their little legs could carry them. Just as the last of the goblins were disappearing into the brush, several projectiles came from the direction they were fleeing from and took several of the goblins from behind.

Three goblins went careening into the ground with long arrows stuck in their backs.

In the distance, from where the goblins had run from, raucous laughter could be heard. However it was only just recognisable as laughter as the voices that accompanied it sounded strange and alien. The laughter and strange voices grew closer until the hunters saw who they belonged to.

From out of the undergrowth emerged three tall, slender figures wearing strange but matching armour. They were humanoid but definitely not human as far as Jack could ascertain, they were extremely pale, bordering on alabaster, very thin and all three looked to be over two metres tall. Their features had a strange graceful slant to them which simultaneously made them look both beautiful and off puttingly alien at the same time. Their armour looked to be some sort of light plate armour with black and red colouring and heavily gilded and decorated with artfully swirling patterns. What was most noticeable however, amongst their long pale cream coloured hair, were their pointed ears.

“Holy shit, elves,” Nate whispered in awe.

At the sound of Nate's voice, all three figures' eyes flicked towards them. They tensed up and brought their weapons to bear, all three wielded bows and wore slender swords on their backs. However, when they saw the hunters and took a longer look at them, they relaxed, as if dismissing them as threats. A couple even looked to be smirking at them.

One of the figures said something to them in an unknown language. The hunters had no clue what they’d said and looked at each other in confusion.

“What did they say?” Meredith asked.

“I dunno….erm….” Simon contemplated what to do.

The humanoid spoke again but in a louder and slower tone, looking frustrated at them. Again, no one understood. Nate stepped forward.

“Let me handle this. Ahem.” Nate cleared his throat. “Dónde está la biblioteca?” he confidently asked them, eliciting confused frowns from the three strangers and everyone else present.

“Why did you just ask them where the library is in Spanish?” Noah asked him, giving Nate a weird look.

“Was that not French?” Now Nate looked confused.

One of the tall strangers approached them, saying something in their own language. From the tone of their voice they still appeared to be asking something but no one could understand it.

It was strange however, Jack noticed that despite the meeting between two armed groups who clearly couldn’t understand each other, the three strangers did not appear to be concerned or nervous at all. In fact they appeared to be rather relaxed and confident.

The three elves, if that is what they were, walked up to the confused human hunters and proceeded to have a conversation with each other as if the humans weren’t even there. One of them said something and the other two laughed raucously. Another one of them bent down so that his face was close to Meredith’s and he or she traced a finger across Meredith’s face, they said something else that made the other two smirk and laugh.

Simon attempted to engage them in conversation again but he was ignored, one of the elves grew agitated when they saw the harvested monster loot the hunter teams were carrying. They grabbed one of the silver plates off Katie’s stack and examined it.

“Erm…what do we do? I’m getting a bad vibe here,” Katie said nervously as the elf snatched another silver plate from her.

“Don’t do anything,” Simon hissed as he politely tried to get the elves attention. “This is basically a first contact scenario, they’re literally the first non-humans who haven’t tried to kill or eat us straightaway.”

The elf that was in Meredith’s personal space continued to trace his finger down her face and neck, smiling and chuckling. Meredith was valiantly trying to keep her cool.

“Errr how far do we let this go exactly?” Jack asked. At his voice, one of the elves shot him a look and was about to dismiss him but then their eyes narrowed in anger. They said something to the other two in a raised angry voice whilst pointing at him and marched over to Jack.

“Whoa! Okay there buddy, lets just calm dow - !?” The elf roughly grasped Jack’s shoulder and spun him around before grabbing Jack’s axe from his weapons harness on his back. The elf fumbled slightly before freeing it and holding it aloft to their comrades, he said something again in an angry tone before then viciously backhanding Jack across his face.

Jack stumbled back in shock, it didn’t really hurt but still, rude. Two of the elves drew their weapons with snarls, but it wasn’t they who struck first. The elf that was feeling up Meredith clearly had no idea how much danger he was in when he grabbed a handful of her long blonde hair and yanked on it. She suddenly grabbed his arm and proceeded to twist it behind their back. The elf’s high pitched scream of pain was accompanied by a series of very audible cracks and pops which brought them to their knees.

The other two elves gasped in horror and indignation. One of them said something in a harsh tone and held up a hand and a ball of fire manifested in it. Jack didn’t give him a chance to do anything with it as he poured a strong current of lightning into his own hand and sent an open palm straight into the elf’s stomach. They went down straight away. The last elf still standing or not whimpering in pain snarled and swung his sword at Nate who lazily dodged out of the way, he made a ‘come on’ gesture to the enraged elf. They snarled again and attacked Nate with a series of rapid swipes, Nate dodged and blocked them all easily with a wide grin.

“Nate, would you just hurry up and finish him off?” Noah told him in frustration.

“I’m just seeing what this guys got. Never fought an elf before, you should…..always….savour……the….first……time!” he said between dodges.

At seeing how ineffectual his attacks were, the elf angrily dropped his sword and with a mad cackle they gathered a handful of fire and blasted a gout of it at Nate. Nate just stood there and caught the attack in his own hands, he absorbed all the fire and suppressed it all into a tiny bright orb before slowly popping it in his mouth. He swallowed it and exhaled a plume of smoke through his nose and mouth while grinning at the horrified elf.

The elf backed away in panic, now beginning to understand their predicament, before they could have any more time to ponder on it; however, Simon went up behind them and clubbed them over the back of the head with the haft of his trident. The elf went down without a sound.

“Aww, he was mine,” Nate whined.

Simon ignored him, he sighed deeply and rubbed his face.

“This is probably still better than all the other first contacts humanity has ever done,” Jack put in helpfully as the elf he’d taken down twitched and spasmed slightly at his feet.

“Yeah, at least they didn’t try to eat us,” Katie added on cheerfully.

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

“I don’t mean to be racist or anything, and I’m really not, but does it just seem like every non-human we meet is kind of an asshole?” Katie asked the group of hunters as they trudged across the open no-man's land towards the gates of the outpost. Each hunter from both teams were laden down with the harvested loot from the Kladican they’d slain along with the dead weight of the three elves they’d knocked out in their previous encounter. They’d decided to bring them back to the outpost as well. Noah was also concentrating on corralling the still high formerly missing surveyor, who was just now starting to come down off his trip.

“Well I have to admit I’ve never sat down and had a pleasant conversation with a goblin over a cup of tea,” Stacey answered in amusement.

“Mm, the first orc I ever got close to, I had to gouge its eyes out because it was trying to crush my spine,” Jack confessed. He shifted the elf he was carrying over his shoulder to a more comfortable position.

“And now these guys too, what was their problem I wonder?” Meredith dropped the elf she was dragging behind her and stopped to smooth her hair down as she carried her own stack of silver plates in her other arm.

“They seemed like they knew what we were,” Noah said in contemplation.

“Huh? What do you mean?” Gina from team Stalker asked.

“It’s like, when they saw us, they weren’t confused about our appearance, as soon as they saw us they relaxed. I think they’ve seen humans before,” Noah said as he herded the surveyor in the direction of the outpost.

“How is that possible? I’m pretty sure that was the first ever contact we’ve had with….elves before now,” Stacey said.

“Well, how do we know they are elves? And if they are, then how do we even know about elves? And if we know about them then why shouldn’t elves know about humans?” Jack wondered.

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“Wha?” Nate asked in confusion.

“It doesn’t really do us any good to speculate right now,” Simon interjected. “Let's just get these guys dropped off at the command building and let them deal with this. We’ll tell them about the rest of the monster still in the Woods then we can sell the loot.”

Everyone agreed and continued to make their way to the outpost. When they arrived, a large crowd of hunters, guild personnel and journalists had gathered within the gates and watched as they entered.

The usual babble of voices greeted them as they walked through the gates along with camera flashes and normal questions about the hunt. However, once people realised what and who else they were bringing in, the crowd exploded with excitement and questions. The hunters were assailed from all sides by the curious crowd and flashing cameras.

The hunter teams eventually made it to the quarantine building with some difficulty and were let inside while the rest of the crowd was forced to wait outside. The commander eventually came to meet them along with Cheryl, director Welts, several admin staff and other higher ranking hunters.

When they saw the hunters along with the missing surveyor, Welts stepped forward happily.

“Gregory old chap! How are you?” Welt asked him cheerfully.

“Urgh!” The surveyor dry heaved.

“Oh dear.”

“Well, at least you’re all still alive so that's good, now we can - ?” the commander began talking. However he was forced to a stop when Jack, Meredith and Simon deposited the three unconscious elves at his feet. “Eh? What's……this?” He looked down at the three figures for several moments before looking back up at the hunters with a raised eyebrow.

Cheryl bent down to take a closer look. “Well fuck me. Are these what I think they are?” she asked with actual surprise.

“If you think they’re elves and assholes, then yes, yes they are,” Katie answered her.

“What happened?” the commander asked grimly as Welts called for some medics and stretchers.

“They….” Meredith began but trailed off.

“They got a little handsy,” Jack finished for her.

“And stabby,” Nate added.

“They attacked you?” Welts asked in concern.

“Kind of…” Simon answered guiltily.

“What do you mean kind of?” the commander asked suspiciously.

Simon explained what happened whilst the commander, Cheryl and Welts listened silently with Jack and the other hunters commenting occasionally. When they were done, the commander sighed.

“Well, so much for first contact….again. We’ll have to inform the rest of the guild execs and the government I suppose,” he said and turned to Cheryl. She nodded.

“Yes, I’ll do that while you get these three into a quarantine cell and some medical attention, it's actually a bit of a shame all three are alive, we could’ve dissected one.” Cheryl grinned at them, everyone looked at her in alarm. “Anyway, looks like some of you need to go to the medbay too.” At her words Welts stepped forward.

“Yes indeed, why don’t you all get yourselves checked out,” Welts suggested in concern while guiding them down the corridor to the medbay.

A little while later Jack found himself lying in bed while a doctor messed around with his arms and hands, establishing where the damage was and fixing it. He’d put them under a local anaesthesia and was pulling the severed ligaments back together and holding them in place with pins and clamps, just as Stacey said. When he was done, the doctor stood up.

“There we are, all done. Now I want you to stay in place like that for a couple of hours, your accelerated healing should take care of the rest,” the doctor told him as he took off his latex gloves and washed his hands. He covered Jack’s arms with a sheet so they couldn’t be seen.

“Two hours? What am I supposed to do for two hours?” Jack asked in dismay, both his hands were numb and strapped down.

The doctor shrugged nonchalantly. “Read a book? Oh wait….nevermind, I’m sure you’ll think of something.” With that the doctor walked off. Jack watched him go, fuming slightly. The other hunters had all either left quarantine or they were in other parts of the building, so Jack was stuck on his own.

That at least gave him time to meditate and assess his lightning core. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Unlike other hunters who could just sit next to a puddle of water or a campfire and cultivate at whatever pace they wanted, Jack’s method didn’t really allow him the luxury of time, nor did the element itself seem like it would consent to a slower pace of cultivation. Lightning was too fast, when he cultivated he just had to take it all as it came and try not to fry himself.

So, he could only ever really assess the nature of his core in between hunts during his downtime, rather than actually during long relaxed cultivation sessions.

In his mind’s eye, his core had grown significantly, it looked to be twice the size of a human fist, it seemed to be vibrating and had rippling arcs of electricity coursing off it. Though he had no idea if that was good or not, the scientific study of cultivation was only just getting started.

A short while ago, some scientists in Switzerland had performed a study where they’d tried to physically examine the elemental cores of a group of volunteers made up of both cultivators and non-cultivators. What they’d found had been very different from what the cultivators had seen of their cores in their mind’s eyes.

When performing the exploratory surgery, the doctors had seen a strange network of faintly glowing thin tendrils extending from a tiny, tightly bunched mass of them near the heart. The network reached a short distance into the body before disappearing amongst all the body's vital organs. The size of the mass seemed to correlate with how powerful the cultivators were estimated to be. When the doctors had tried to probe the small bunched masses of tendrils however, the volunteers went into shock and died shortly after.

Jack opened his eyes a short while later, he remained bored and not able to move. Still with extra time to kill, he decided to do something he’d been meaning to do for a while now.

A female nurse entered the medbay and Jack watched her walk to a supply drawer. He stared at her intently, so intently that she seemed to sense his gaze and looked up at him.

“Um, can I help you? Are you in pain? Do you need anything?” she asked in concern.

Jack continued to stare hard at her for a few more mississippi's, but in the end he answered. “No thanks,” he answered her in a strained voice.

She nodded in confusion before leaving the room, giving him one last weird look before leaving.

Jack let out a gasp and breathed heavily for a few seconds, resting his head back on his pillow. That didn’t work.

Ever since he’d seen that other cultivators like Cheryl and Katie could use their elements to sense the area around them, Jack had been interested in learning the equivalent for his own element. Cheryl could sense other living things by sensing the water content inside them, Katie could arguably do even better by using the air around her to sense everything within a hundred metre radius. That got Jack wondering if he could use his element for something similar, but thus far all he’d managed to do was creep out exactly one nurse, for now.

His thought was that if he could cultivate using another biological being’s electrical impulses, then why shouldn't he be able to sense them. He kept on trying, attempting various mental exercises to connect or sense other electrical impulses around him.

He began to experience some success when he allowed his mind to drift into his core but at the same time keeping his awareness of the outside world. It was strange, he began to faintly see, hear and smell different things around him. He could see faint blue lines around him in the walls and in various electrical appliances, the air smelled slightly tangy, laced with ozone and he could hear quiet almost imperceptible buzzing noises from somewhere around him. He could also almost for lack of a better word, ‘sense’ things around him, without having to look at them, as if all his other senses were coming together and telling his brain something, though he couldn’t quite figure out what.

He faintly felt a large cluster of something getting closer from the direction of the medbay door, then the doctor from earlier walked in.

“Righto Mr Errant, that should be enough time,” he said in a casual manner as he approached Jack’s bed whilst looking at a touchpad. “Let's check and see how we -!?” The doctor paused in alarm as he looked up at Jack’s face. “You're bleeding! Where else were you injured!? Why didn’t you say anything!? The doctor demanded as he scrambled around in a medical cabinet drawer.

“Eh? I’m not injured anywhere else,” Jack replied in confusion.

“Then why is your face bleeding!? Your eyes, nose and your ears!”

“Hm? Oh, that happens sometimes, don’t worry about it,” Jack said, trying to reassure him. Now it was mentioned, he could feel a faint tickling trickle of something dripping from his ears, he could also taste some blood as it ran down from his nose into his mouth.

“What do you mean it happens sometimes?” the doctor asked suspiciously, pausing in mid scramble.

“Just when I experiment and mess around with my elemental abilities, sometimes I….burst a blood vessel or two.” Jack shrugged as he explained, he could just now feel a small headache building.

“Right…” The doctor looked at him sceptically. “Is that something you’ve seen another doctor about?” he asked as he sat down to look at Jack’s arms and hands.

“Yeah actually, they did some scans to see if there was any damage. They said I was completely fine, better than fine actually.” Jack winced as the doctor began removing the various pins and clamps from his flesh, feeling was starting to come back to his arms and hands.

“Hmm, well there’s nothing I can do about all that, but on the other hand, heh heh. Your arms and hands look to be healing well, the ligaments are fully reattached and healed up and the lacerations are already beginning to scar. Try to move your fingers for me?” he asked.

Jack did so and found he could fully move all his digits, though they were still a little numb from the anaesthesia.

“Good, we also found nothing on you from the quarantine tests so now let me give you a shot of antibiotics for prophylaxis and you’re good to go.” The doctor nodded in satisfaction and got out a syringe.

A few minutes later Jack was walking back into team Meredith’s apartment, flexing his arms and hands as he regained feeling in them. He found the rest of the team lounging around the centre table on the circular couch.

“Hey guys,” he greeted them cheerfully. They all greeted him back.

“I’ll sneak up on them like a hero!” the Echo Lily said hello, probably.

“So what did I miss?” he asked as sat down.

“We distributed the loot earnings and got another team sent to see if anythings left of the Kladican,” Meredith told him.

“Okay, what's the split?”

“We agreed that everyone gets two silver plates to either use in their armour or to sell on at their discretion,” Noah explained. “We also sold the antlers for twenty thousand each plus the rest of the plates, all told we each get twelve and a half thousand pounds after splitting the earnings of the bounty and the sale of the loot.”

“Not bad.” Jack nodded.

“We’ll just see if they find anything of that Kladican we left behind, the guild kitchen’s might be interested in it if nothing else,” Stacey said.

“What about the elves?” Nate asked.

“What about them?” Katie replied.

“Well don’t we get a finder’s fee? We’re the first to discover an entirely new species, I’m pretty sure that deserves a bonus doesn’t it?”

“I don’t think it's in our contract to get paid for stuff like that actually,” Stacey informed him. “In fact, if anyone gets paid for that, then it’ll be that surveyor we found, Gregory I think he was called. Discovering new stuff is their purview.”

“What!? But he was doped out of his mind at the time! Look at my boots, he got vomit splatter on them!” Katie exclaimed indignantly.

“Yeah, what was he even on anyway?” Jack asked as he scratched at the healing cuts on his arms. Stacey slapped his hand away.

“I overheard the doctors that pumped his stomach, apparently it was some sort of mushroom that goblins are known to be fond of here in the Woods,” Noah said.

“Hmm.” Nate looked thoughtful.

“Don’t even bother, they already made it illegal in the UK,” Noah informed him.

“Aww!”

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

A couple of days later, the team were packing their bags and heading back into the real world. They’d been informed that due to injuries sustained by their team, they were allowed a week's compensated vacation. Even though Jack and Noah’s injuries were almost entirely healed, the guild still wanted their team to rest and recuperate so they didn’t burn out. So they were told politely to leave the Woods and find something else to do, as long as it wasn’t hunting, either on behalf of the guild or freelancing, the guild strictly forbade freelancing.

Now Jack had to come up with a plan for the next week, he hadn’t had a proper break for the better part of a year and his own place had been burnt down by some crazy cult. He gave it some thought as he packed his stuff and joined the others in leaving their living quarters. At least he had plenty of money, he could maybe find something to spend it on. He could travel somewhere, he had his armour and weapons in his gym bag, so he was fully prepared to get into some trouble if needed.

The others were all discussing their plans.

“What are you going to do Stacey?” he asked.

“Oh…..erm….we - I…me, Katie and Meredith are going down to Milan,” she told him in slight embarrassment.

“Milan? What's down there?” Nate asked in surprise.

“Italy,” Katie told him blandly.

“I know that!” he said indignantly before shooting a subtle, questioning look at Jack who nodded in confirmation, Milan is indeed in Italy. “I mean why are you three going down there? Did you get licences to hunt in Europe?” he asked excitedly.

“No, we er….we were invited to a fashion show,” Meredith said, chagrined.

“You’re going to watch a fashion show? Boring!” Nate dismissed.

“We’re not going to watch it! We’re going to be in it,” Katie said proudly

Nate spluttered in surprise, even Noah did a double take.

“Thats…not what I was expecting,” Jack said diplomatically.

“Yeah, my mother insisted, she wanted all three of us, heh heh,” Meredith let out a nervous, unhappy sounding giggle.

“So what, the theme is….hunting?” Jack asked in confusion.

Meredith sighed tiredly. “I don’t know, I just hope they don’t make us wear anything too skimpy. God! She’s always doing this, always making me do things like this and I can never say no. Sorry for roping you into this guys,” she said apologetically to Stacey and Katie.

“Don’t worry about it,” Stacey said quietly, looking just as uncomfortable as Meredith.

“No worries! It could be fun!” Katie said happily.

The team continued to chat and walk along the wide avenue to the distorted rift in space that led to the outside world. Broken sunlight streamed through it and Jack could feel the pleasant warmth on his face as he stepped through, he wondered again what to do with his week off.

“FREEZE!!” a voice boomed out as soon as they crossed the threshold. The team stopped in surprise and looked around. Arrayed before them in the car park just outside the Dire Woods entrance were many police vehicles and police armed with firearms, flashing red and blue lights created a strobe effect in the area. The police were all pointing their weapons at them. Along with the police, there were numerous hunters all looking at them grimly. Behind the barricade of police vehicles was a large crowd of interested bystanders and journalists.

But standing amongst the armed police and hunters, right at the front, was a grinning Eric Flamewrought.

“JACK ERRANT!!” the same voice boomed out of a microphone. “YOU ARE HEREBY UNDER ARREST FOR THE MURDER OF MULTIPLE HUMAN BEINGS! COME QUIETLY AND DO NOT RESIST!”