Chapter 19

The next day Jack got ready and headed over to the abandoned construction site he’d already been to a couple of times previously. The hunt request had several other spots shown on a provided map but he preferred familiar territory and wanted to further explore that area. He got on his bike and set off. However, he must’ve looked ridiculous with a spear and an axe strapped to his back with a bucket hanging from the spear head whilst riding a bike because numerous people paused to gawk or smirk at him. One obnoxious little boy eating an ice-cream cone openly pointed and laughed at him, in response Jack swerved towards him and knocked the ice-cream into the kid’s face before riding away.

Within twenty minutes he made it to the familiar zone and climbed over the chain link fence. He wasted no time and drew his spear from his back before heading into the first building, he did a search of the ground floor and was lucky enough to find a slime quite quickly. Just like before it simply looked like a puddle of darkish liquid, almost like oil. It was unmoving except for a faint occasional ripple.

He waited and watched, seeing if it was going to do something interesting. Instead it just lay there. Sighing with disappointment he got out his pager and turned around, he selected the camera option and held it up. Just as he tapped the button however the slime suddenly reared up and lunged at Jack. He hurriedly rolled out of the way and back-pedalled before falling onto his arse, breathing heavily. The slime settled back down into a puddle.

Jack breathed a sigh or relief, he got up and dusted himself off. He picked up his spear from where he’d dropped it and walked back up to the treacherous puddle making sure to keep a safe distance. He held his spear by the very end and channelled some lighting energy into it, he then simply touched the puddle with the spear tip. The puddle suddenly twitched and spasmed, rearing up slightly before falling still. Multicoloured steam emanated from the now non-aggressive puddle and the edges were visibly shrinking. Jack hurriedly knelt down and channelled some more lightning energy into the puddle through his spear. The multicoloured steam disappeared and the puddle stopped shrinking.

He picked up his bucket and wondered how to go about getting the extremely corrosive goop into it. In the end he used his machete lined in lightning energy to sweep in as much of the stuff in as he could. It was actually a fair amount, around a litre or so, at this rate he would only need to kill three more. Then somehow transport a gallon of an incredibly dangerous, corrosive substance across town on his bike in an open container. Huh.

Jack got out his phone and dialled Gary’s number. It rang for a few seconds before someone answered.

“Hey, this is Gary.”

“Hi, it’s Jack.”

“Hey Jack! You got the slime?”

“I’m working on it, just realised I don’t really have a means to transport the stuff. Uh, do you mind coming and picking me up? Maybe bring a sealed container too?” Jack asked.

“Uh, yeah ok. Where are you now?”

“In the old abandoned construction site south east of the highstreet.”

“Yep, I know the one. I can be there in twenty to thirty minutes.”

“That's fine, I’ll wait out front. See ya.”

“Ok, see ya.” Gary hung up and Jack put his phone away. He grabbed his bucket and spear and headed off to find some more slimes. In the end it only took him another ten minutes to get the rest of what was needed.

The last slime he killed and harvested was the fourth one, he’d gotten fairly confident and began experimenting with his abilities on a fifth one once he’d harvested all the slime he needed. Whilst wandering the building he came across several abandoned tools including hammers, crowbars, screwdrivers and chains. He wanted to see if he could channel his lightning energy through any metal implement so he threw several tools at the last slime creating a trail of metal leading back to him. He turned away to pick up a chain, when he turned back around the slime had actually slid several feet towards Jack, consuming the metal tools and looking ready to consume Jack too. The slime reared up and he could actually see some of the tools floating around inside its gelatinous body.

In a panic Jack whipped the chain at the slime and channelled a bit of lighting into it. The slime vaporised. It simply went up in multicoloured steam, the tools all clattered to the ground, discharging blue electricity between each other. Jack stared dumbfounded at the spot the slime had previously occupied, wondering how exactly he’d done that. He had only poured a little energy into that attack, and the chain wasn’t as conductive as his spear but somehow that attack had annihilated the slime completely. He stepped over to the tools and shifted them with his boot. A hammer discharged some blue electricity up his leg, he felt a slight tickle. Maybe it was because it was covered or at least in contact with all that metal Jack wondered. Another ability or trick to mess around with he thought happily.

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Luckily he had all the slime he needed because there was nothing left to harvest from this one. He grabbed his gear and loot and headed back outside to wait for Gary.

He wasn’t waiting long, Gary rolled up within five minutes in an old SUV. He got out and greeted Jack who was sitting down on the pavement curb with the bucket of harvested slime resting next to him.

“Hey Jack, ya got what I asked for?” he cheerfully asked.

“You’re not wearing a wire right?” Jack replied, feeling like messing with Gary.

“Wha?” Gary tilted his head in confusion.

“You’re legally required to tell me if you’re wearing a wire, or is it you’re legally required to tell me you’re a cop? Or is that just in movies? I dunno, but yeah I got the stuff, you got the cash?”

“I got - you got - what the fuck?” Gary stuttered, his face going red.

“Heh, I’m just messing with you, this isn’t a drug deal. But yep, it’s all here, a full gallon - ish,” Jack confirmed.

“Ah good good, er, a gallonish?” Gary asked uncertainly.

“Well I didn’t use a measuring cylinder or anything but I filled the bucket to the red line so I’m pretty sure you’ve got a gallon plus a little extra in there.” Jack shrugged. “Can we go now?”

“Uh sure, yeah, I’ll get my container and we can fill it up and head off,” Gary replied.

Gary brought out a large metal square container with a lid and they both transferred the slime from the bucket to the container. Afterwards they drove back to Gary’s shop. Once they arrived Gary parked around the back and Jack helped him unload the container and take it into the back of the shop. Once they put it down Jack looked around, the back of Gary's weapons and armour store looked like a combination between a machine shop and an old fashioned smithy. Bits and pieces of metal lay scattered all over work benches in an expansive workshop, actual anvils were present next to what Jack assumed was a forge. All manner of different machinery lay around that Jack had no idea what they were for.

“‘Scuse the mess, don’t normally get visitors,” Gary spoke up as he shifted the container under a bench.

Jack shrugged. “It's fine, so what are you gonna use that stuff for anyway?” he asked.

At this Gary’s eyes lit up. “Oh it's gonna be great! This stuff is almost like pure magic energy, I’ll be able to use it to quickly smelt any ore I’ve got and the pure metal will be easily infused with any element I want. Smiths that use elemental monster parts in their gear use it all the time. You said you wanted something dangerously conductive right? Well this is the stuff I need for that,” he explained happily. Somebody loved their work.

Jack nodded along then wondered what piece of gear he wanted, he unhooked the spear from his back and looked at it. It was a good weapon, he thought, but it was a little cumbersome to carry around. Gary walked over and took the spear from Jack’s hands, he examined it closely and spoke.

“I saw you use that on those wolf things on the news, you actually looked like you knew what you were doing out there,” he said as he continued to examine the spear.

“Thanks, I think. It's definitely a good weapon, it sucks in the lightning element really easily, even better than the machete you sold me.” Jack tapped the machete sheathed at his side.

“Yeah, it's got graphite in, good conductor that. Anyway the spears still in good condition, but it should be, you’ve had it less than a week. Which reminds me, you need a maintenance kit, be right back.” Gary gave the spear back to Jack and turned away to walk through a door into the front of the store, he came back a moment later with a little zip bag and handed it to Jack. “It's nothing fancy, just some oil, a whetstone and other bits and pieces, there's a little printout with instructions inside.” Jack accepted it and nodded. “So anyway, have you thought some more about that custom job you said you wanted,” he asked.

“Well…..” Jack hadn’t, but now he had some ideas. “This is a great spear, but spears are a little tricky to carry around. Hmmm, how about a errrrr, telescopic spear?”

Gary looked confused for a moment. “A what now?”

“You know, like a collapsible spear, like with telescopes or some ladders. Retractable,” Jack tried to explain.

Gary still seemed confused but then recognition dawned in his eyes. “Ohhh, I get ya, hmm, interesting idea. It would need to be made of a series of hollow tubes, might make it a bit fragile though.” He crossed his arms and looked to the side, deep in thought.

Jack started to feel enthusiasm for his own idea. “It just needs a strong metal, and when it's fully retracted it’ll only be around a foot in length or so but when it's fully extended it can be around two metres. Oo! Can we also have springs inside so that I just need to press a button and the whole thing shoots out really fast and stabs what I’m pointing it at? Oh now that would be cool, can you imagine? I’m like, hey mr monster, just let me get my weapon off my back, oh no! I accidentally brought the short spear! Actually wait, click, no I didn’t!” Jack mimed out his fantasy and Gary watched with a blank expression.

“Like I said kid, it's an interesting idea. It’ll be tricky though,” Gary said.

“I thought you said you like a challenge,” Jack said teasingly and smirked.