Chapter 32

After the hunt for the wasps and selling all his loot, things settled into a bit of a routine for Jack. He spent the majority of his time training, both with his weapons and with his burgeoning abilities with the lightning element.

With Danny acting as his trainer, Jack was put through his paces and ruthlessly drilled in many axe and spear combat manoeuvres, always ending with several spars against random opponents in the arenas. At first it was slow going but he started to see visible results, with the constant exercise, practice and cultivation he had started to get noticeably stronger, faster and more skilled.

His control over his element also improved, after a hideous amount of time at the shooting range he could finally hit what he aimed at, most of the time. The point was the lighting bolt didn’t immediately veer off course straight away, but he definitely needed more practice. The research assistant Sebastien sometimes attended these sessions along with Danny to run various tests.

As a bonus he’d also started to gain some small control over his apparent ability to become magnetic, with a little concentration he could shift a knife or fork back and forth across a dinner table without touching them. He had immense fun with this one evening when he kept pulling and pushing Nate's eating utensils out of his reach while they were eating in the guild hall.

Every few days he made sure to take a hunt to maintain his quota and eventually rank up again, the requests from Gary the smith and Steven the taxidermist certainly helped with that and kept him busy. One of the requests from Gary had him on a hunt for a herd of strange small monsters called Leather Claws which though not actually observed to be carnivorous, were still extremely aggressive and territorial. Not a great combination when they decided to create their den next to a busy street in town which is always full of cars and pedestrians. The monsters were small, about the size of a badger and were considered moderately valuable for their loose, tough, hairless, leathery pelt, this was the request from Gary, he wanted their pelts for armour materials, the actual hunt was on behalf of the city. Despite their size they were quite strong and fast and defended themselves and their nest extremely viciously with tooth and claw, as Jack found out when he hunted them, as did every pedestrian and driver who were unwittingly passing by.

When they first appeared numerous people were injured quite severely, one particularly zealous Leather Claw smashed its way through the windscreen of a car and proceeded to savage the driver to death.

Jack managed to deal with the creatures though not before learning something new about his element and very nearly getting himself killed. When multiple Leather Claws had clamped their jaws around his limbs Jack had the bright idea of channelling lightning throughout his body in order to hurt them. It paralysed the creatures but also had the undesired effect of making the little monster's jaws clamp down on him even harder, Jack had forgotten that electricity makes muscles contract, jaw muscles in this case. In desperation he just barely managed to draw his machete and proceeded to stab to death each of the leathery critters that had latched onto him. It took even more effort to shake them off him, their jaws still clamped down hard, even in death. After that he went to hunt down all the other Leather Jaws that had scattered when he arrived at their den as well as harvesting their pelts.

As soon as he was done the police and road workers moved in on the scene and immediately began an efficient cleanup operation so that the road could reopen and permit traffic through once more. By now these disturbances were quite common and the police and other public services were well versed in crowd and crisis management.

Once he had delivered the pelts to Gary, he provided Jack with some additional equipment after seeing the sorry state of Jack's arms and legs. Vambraces to protect his forearms and elbows as well as greaves to protect his lower legs plus some fingerless gauntlets, each piece was plain unadorned metallic grey made up of a strong steel tungsten alloy. Not impressively eye-catching or ostentatious in the least but it was sleek and functional and it would probably take a hell of a lot more than a rabid badger like creature to bite or claw through and damage it.

More importantly however, Gary provided Jack with a helmet, like the greaves and vambraces it was unadorned steel and tungsten, it was fashioned almost like a mediaeval knights barbut helmet but in a modern style, much like many of Gary's works. The helm effectively covered his entire head and upper neck, it had a full face visor that could be raised or lowered and tee shaped eye slits with bullet proof ballistic glass that still allowed Jack to see through, when he wore it he sacrificed a bit of visibility but gained a lot of protection in return.

As for Steven the taxidermist, the wasp heads Jack had sold him had piqued the interest of various entomologists and collectors. Steven asked Jack if he could repeat the feat and perhaps also harvest the delicate wings as well. Jack agreed and also roped Zack and Rachael into his hunt, another Needlejacket infestation, this time it was a small nest in a narrow alley behind a restaurant. They managed the hunt with little incident, Rachael's control over the wind element proved extremely effective at hampering the monster's ability to fly and Zack expertly used his katana to kill any wasp he got close to without damaging the head or wings.

When the hunt was over Steven agreed to pay one hundred and seventy pounds again for each head and two hundred pounds for each pair of wings. Jack happily agreed and then over the siblings protestations he split all the earnings from the taxidermy between the three of them, Zack and Rachael argued that it was his money since it was his unique attuning skill that allowed the harvesting, but Jack ignored them, stating that the attuning came second nature to him so it didn’t cost him any extra effort.

Towards the end of his second month as a hunter with the guild Jack found himself at the jobs and requests room looking down at a terminal and reading about a rather odd job. Dungeon escort.

A dungeon, not a mediaeval prison of chains, cages and torture implements, but an actual dungeon, a semi sentient manifestation of magic filled with ever spawning monsters, traps and treasure. When the first one was discovered in Buenos Aires, Argentina just over a year ago and the full implications of what had been discovered were understood, it was like a new gold rush had been started in a new era already filled with opportunity, wonder and peril. Just the finders fee alone for discovering a new dungeon could set a person up for life, they drew the interest of countless hunters for the never ending loot they produced as well as the rabid interest of countless scientists for the fact that dungeons represented controlled environments where they could reliably study the mysteries of the new changed world.

For Jack, delving into a dungeon was one of his main ambitions, even before the world had changed and magic was introduced, to travel, to see the world and interesting sights was always what he’d wanted. If he could become strong enough to visit different dungeons around the world and see the reportedly fantastical sights and the abstract wonders within, it would be like a dream come true.

But back to the job, it was an E rank job, dungeon delving jobs weren’t supposed to start at anything below high D ranks and even then you weren’t permitted to go far into the dungeon. This wasn’t a proper dungeon delve but something else. Jack decided to go to the help desk to find out more, luckily Cheryl was there today.

“Hey Cheryl!” he called out as he walked over.

“Hi Jack, doing well for yourself I hear. You here for another hunt?” she asked with a relaxed smile.

“Sort of, I saw a weird job in the E rank listing, Dungeon escort for a week? What's that exactly?” he asked.

“Ah, I thought that might catch your attention.” She smirked. “Basically you would escort a bunch of tourists on a tour through the upper floors of the dungeon beneath Clifford’s tower,” she explained.

“Escort? But what if you’ve never been in a dungeon before?” he asked in confusion. “I thought all dungeon jobs were for the higher ranks.”

“Normal dungeon delves are for higher ranked hunters but this isn’t an actual dungeon delve, this is just you providing extra protection in a low ranked dungeon and to make the tourists feel safer,” she explained.

Jack simply gave her his most sceptical look.

“Tourists? In a dungeon? Protected by a low ranked hunter? Really?”

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“Yep, out of the two dungeons in York, Clifford’s tower is easily the lowest ranked weakest one and so it gives very little pay out in terms of loot. It's good for hunters to cut their teeth on when just starting out with dungeon delving but beyond that the profit for each delve is minimal compared to the amount of effort a team goes through each time they enter. Originally the English heritage owned the dungeon but they sold it off recently to some touristy company, the company came up with the idea to offer guided tours in the less dangerous areas,” she explained.

“Guided tours huh? How much is it?” he asked.

She looked through something on her computer before answering. “Two hundred and twenty pounds for adults, one ninety for teenagers between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, no kids allowed. Apparently each group is made up of twenty people and there are two groups a day, they run the tours seven days a week and apparently they’re booked solid for the next six months. So they stand to make around………huh, well over a million alone in half a year from just this one very low ranked dungeon, that's not bad,” she said wonderingly, sounding faintly impressed.

“And how much do I get paid?” he asked eagerly, surely such a profitable venture should see him paid very well.

“Errrm, three hundred,” she said after a moment, glancing at her screen.

“Per tour group?”

“Per day,” she answered.

“Oh.” Disappointment. “Then pass,” he said dismissively.

“Not so fast Jack, I think this could be good for you. You intend to do dungeon delves in the future, yes?” she asked. He nodded. “Then I highly recommend you take this job, it will give you a feel for dungeons in general and it's also highly educational, the tour guide is supposed to tell people all about dungeons and various useful bits and pieces of information.”

“But why the low pay?” he asked a little petulantly.

She shrugged. “It's highly unlikely you will be doing much fighting, the company has their own people who clear out the upper floors of the dungeon periodically and we send down people to clear out the rest of the dungeon occasionally too. A hunter is actually only included in the tour group due to an agreement between the guild and the company, so you’ll probably just be tagging along with each group. It's easy money basically.”

“Hmmm.” Jack rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I do like easy money. Meh, why not, I’ll do it, could be interesting.”

“Great, go sign up and I believe it starts tomorrow at nine am, good luck.” Cheryl motioned him towards the terminal before pulling out her phone and leaning back in her chair. Seeing he’d just been dismissed Jack went to the terminal and registered for the job. With that done he headed back home to relax for the rest of the day.

The next morning Jack woke up and prepared for the new job. Clifford’s Tower was an old but well maintained hill fort over on the other side of the city so it took him about thirty minutes to walk his way over. He carried his armour, weapons and the rest of his gear in a gym bag as he was informed he would be provided with his own locker whilst on the job.

As he drew near the fort he noticed a slight increase in armed police officers and even a military presence. This was the usual case for areas surrounding dungeons and other magical anomalies, the fear that monsters would break out and wreak havoc in populated areas wasn’t unfounded. In fact it had happened before, monsters that spawn inside dungeons do seem to occasionally find their way outside, either individually or in swarms. What happens after that generally depends on how populated the surrounding area is. By law, all known dungeons require constant armed guard and a hunter presence close enough to be capable of responding to breakouts within an hour.

Jack walked past patrolling pairs of police officers and small fortified machine gun emplacements where soldiers waited. Eventually he came to it, Cliffords Tower wasn’t a gigantic legendary mediaeval fortress, instead it was a small but sturdy motte and bailey fort on top of a steep hill about fifteen metres up with the actual structure being only a few stories high. Even before the dungeon opened up beneath it the tower was a tourist attraction managed by the English heritage charity. Now another company called Yorkshire dungeon tours had purchased the dungeon beneath the tower, both the charity and the company did a brisk business, coordinating with each other and sharing tour groups, the tower and dungeon had both become extremely popular tourist hotspots recently.

Jack looked down at his pager for instructions on where to go exactly when he reached the tower, it said he was supposed to a building with a glass front across the road from the tower. He looked around and spotted it, it had the logo and the name of the company clearly depicted, he approached and entered through the door.

“Good morning! How can I help you today?” a cheerful young woman at the front counter greeted him. The counter was covered in booklets and leaflets about various tourist destinations around York and Yorkshire. The rest of the room was taken up by shelves of gift shop merchandise with a dungeon theme.

“Uh hey,” Jack greeted her. “I’m the hunter the guild sent over for the dungeon tour thingy?” he told her, hoping she would know what he was talking about and be able to tell where to go and what to do.

She looked confused for a moment before realisation dawned in her eyes. “Oh! That's right! You're the next dungeon escort from the hunters guild. Ah ok then, just a sec and I’ll go tell the manager, back in a moment.” She hurriedly walked to a rear door behind the front counter and could be heard shouting for someone. A few seconds later another woman emerged, she was older wearing a pantsuit and greeted Jack warmly.

“Hello you must be Jack Errant right? I’m Sarah, nice to meet you,” she spoke with an American accent, she held out her hand to shake. Jack shook it and greeted her back.

“Likewise,” he answered with a small smile and a nod.

“So! I’m sure you’re ready to get started then. I’ll show you to the locker room, you can just pick any locker with a key already in it, then when you’re ready I’ll show you to the dungeon entrance. Afterwards I’ll leave you with Allan, he’s our head of security, in charge of keeping the tour area free of monsters as well as exhibition fights,” she explained as she led Jack through the rear door.

“Yeah, someone mentioned you guys clear the upper floors yourselves, so your security practises cultivation then?” he asked while following her along a narrow corridor.

“Yes indeed, but only in a very limited fashion. You hunters may think it easy but you wouldn’t believe how many of our security team have wound up in hospital due to cultivation accidents. And we’ve only just started the tours!” she explained in exasperation.

“Oh? How many?” he asked curiously.

“Well, we started with a security team of thirty, a few of them ex-hunters who wanted a more stable schedule, and we’re now down to seventeen! So because of that we’ve instituted a company policy that the security team members cannot cultivate their element for more than an hour a day.”

“Hmm, smart,” he answered noncommittally.

She just nodded her head, now seeming a little flustered, apparently this was a sore spot and a source of angst for her and the burgeoning enterprise.

“I don’t suppose you have any tips on safe cultivation practices do you?” she asked with a nervous little laugh, but with a detectable underlying tone of desperation.

“Um, sorry I’m not really the person to ask about cultivation techniques. I errr….kind of just do what feels right and hope for the best. Maybe you could approach the guild directly and ask them,” he told her quickly, hoping to divert her away and maybe making her think him slightly incompetent.

She sighed despondently. “We tried already, long story short, they said no.” Her shoulders drooped. “Anyway, nevermind all that!” She perked up immediately. “This is the men's locker room, just pick a locker inside and get kitted up. I’ll be just down the hall, come find me when you’re ready and I’ll show you to the dungeon.” She walked off down the corridor.

Jack opened the locker room door, it was a pretty standard set up with lockers, benches, sinks and showers. He picked an unused locker and began to put his armour on over his clothes, the armoured flak jacket, the greaves, the bracers, the gauntlets and finally his new helmet. He strapped his weapon harness onto his back and attached his axe, spear and machete to it before also attaching his med kit and harvesting kit. This was the first time he’d ever been fully armoured, he looked at himself in a mirror above a sink, he looked like a real hunter now, like a professional.

He left the visor on his helmet up for now and went off in search of Sarah. When he found her she was nervously sipping a cup of coffee, she saw him coming with wide eyes and went over to him.

“Oh! Hi! Wow you look……huh…..you know when I first saw you….well……Though I don’t suppose you have any armour using monster materials do you? I know Allen thinks it looks ridiculous but the tourists love it and well……….uh nevermind. Um shall we then? He he,” she asked nervously with an awkward chuckle.

Jack shrugged and followed her outside. She led him to the back of the building stating that this is where he would enter and exit the building from now on. They went around through a narrow alley to the front street again before crossing the road and approaching the tower. They walked around the hill and on the other side that's where Jack actually got his first real look at the dungeon entrance, he’d seen it before of course on the news, likewise with the other dungeon in York and others around the UK too but this was the first time he’d seen it in person. It was essentially a pitch black jagged rift into the side of the hill, it looked like some giant had plunged its hands into the hill and ripped it apart to create a large hole. It was strange, even though the sun was bright that day, the light simply stopped at the giant rift into the hill, the inky blackness actually almost seemed to protrude out, beyond the confines of the dungeon.