Mad Hatter's Guide to Clearing The Game
Chapter 242: Ch240. Before the real hunt begins

Chapter 242: Ch240. Before the real hunt begins

The next few hours passed in a blur of orientation.

The Lodge was not a singular organization, but a collection of groups. Hunting parties, solo specialists, lore-seekers, and beast-cullers. Each followed their own code, bound by only one rule.

Never draw the ire of the city’s roots. Keir showed them the training hall, a sprawling arena with traps that reshaped themselves and golems designed to mimic beasts of every kind. Miles watched as a young girl no older than fourteen took down a construct shaped like what Keir called a smoke-bear with a bow made from stringed antlers.

"Don’t underestimate the young." Keir said, smirking. "Age isn’t always an advantage in Tir’Serene."

Next was the lodge’s archive, an underground vault of living parchment, where scrolls unfurled like breathing lungs and whispered their knowledge to anyone willing to listen.

Miles swore he saw one scroll wink at him when he passed by.

Sarissa lingered longest in the forge hall. The scent of hot iron and shaped bone filled the air. Artisans wove spells into their work, and one man was shaping what looked like a whip made of chain-lightning bound in sinew.

"I could spend a week just watching." She said with watery eyes.

"And still not understand half of it." Keir agreed.

Miles looked at her and then at Sarissa but said nothing else, holding the silent memory in the air.

By the time they returned to the common room, the sun had begun to sink. Shadows grew long across the bone-laced eaves, and laughter echoed through the chamber as a group of hunters shared drinks near the hearth.

"It’s not what I expected." Miles leaned on the banister overlooking the lower floor.

"What did you expect?" Sarissa asked, joining him.

"I don’t know. More... Order, more roles, missions, systems."

"You keep forgetting." She said, smirking. "We’re outside the System now."

"System?" Asked a new voice behind them, curious.

They turned and saw a tall figure standing just beyond the firelight. Lean, wolfish, with an eyepatch covering one eye and a bandolier of glass vials across his chest. His coat bore the mark of the Lodge, but painted in red over black, like an inverted symbol.

"We’re just under one kind of rule here." He stepped forward and offered a lopsided grin.

"You’re a hunter?" Miles straightened slightly.

"Call me Jorrin. Leader of Ashmark." The man nodded.

"Ashmark?" Sarissa blinked.

"One of the older hunting groups. We take the jobs no one else wants, or the ones the city doesn’t speak of."

He studied them both for a long moment, and then said.

"You two... You did the moss trial, didn’t you?"

"Yesterday." Miles nodded.

"You did it without harm. That means you listened, and that’s rare." He stepped closer, glancing down at their clasps. "You’re not just here to pass time, are you?"

"We’re here to earn our place." Sarissa said.

"And to find something." Miles added.

Jorrin smiled, and there was something dangerous in it. Not malice, but knowledge earned from pain.

"Well then..." He reached into his coat and tossed something onto the table between them.

It was a token. Carved from darkroot and inscribed with a spiral glyph. The same spiral that marked the Unclaimed Echoes section.

He leaned in, his eyes gleaming in the low firelight.

"So, you’re looking for a job...?"

***

Jorrin led without speaking, his stride cutting through the crowded halls of the Lodge like a blade through smoke.

Miles and Sarissa followed, their boots falling quieter with each step, the sounds of hearth and laughter receding behind them. A narrow stairway took them deeper, past walls slick with lichen and glyph-marked sconces that pulsed with quiet light.

They emerged into a low, circular chamber beneath the Lodge. Unlike the warm, communal spaces above, this place felt like a wound.

Exposed and unhealed.

The air carried a copper tang, thick with something unspoken. Shadows pressed close.

And inside the chamber, Ashmark awaited.

Five figures stood in a loose arc, each one an answer to a question no one sane would ask. They turned as Jorrin approached, and Miles immediately felt like he was being dissected by eyes sharper than any blade.

"These are the new bloods?" One of them asked. A woman with a scaled left arm and pupils shaped like slits. Her voice held an edge of amusement, like someone watching a cat walk into a lion’s den.

"They passed the Moss trial clean. Didn’t panic, didn’t burn." Jorrin said simply.

"That just means they’re smart, doesn’t mean they’re ready."

"Then, let’s find out." A second figure spoke, a giant wrapped in charred leather, his face half-hidden beneath a wolf skull helm. When he moved, his armor creaked like timber about to snap.

"This is Ashmark. We don’t take guild orders. We take jobs others are afraid to even speak of." Jorrin turned to the pair.

"What kind of jobs?" Sarissa asked carefully.

"The kind where something always bleeds." A woman in a tattered green coat said. Her right hand was missing, replaced by a lattice of vines that curled and writhed like they had minds of their own.

Jorrin gestured to each member as he introduced them.

"That’s Reva, weaver of bone and rot. The big one is Harl, our forward breaker. Scaled lady’s name is Vekka. Then there’s Murn—"

A wiry man sitting cross-legged in the corner lifted a hand and twirled a dagger between his fingers. He wore no armor, just robes stitched with glass beads and prayers in dead languages.

"And you already met me." Jorrin folded his arms. "So, still want in?"

Miles and Sarissa exchanged a look.

"We’re not looking to join a clique." Sarissa said. "But if you have a hunt, we’ll take it."

"Good. Because we’ve got one tonight. Something... Different." Jorrin grinned. "But you can’t take that beast of yours with you. It might be good at putting up a fight, but I saw the way you look at it, and if you truly care for it..."

Jorrin paused for a moment, and the silence weighed like the sky on Miles’ shoulders.

"You better leave it behind in this first hunt."