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His first thought was a number, then he noted light pouring in from the empty windows, and that something warm and heavy and soft was on top of him in his bed roll. He saw Wick's bare shoulder and green hair, spilled over his arm. He put one arm around her then put the other behind his head and grinned.
Wick stirred then blinked “Morning.” She rubbed her way up him, eyes closed and pushed her lips into his. After a a moment of her pushing his mouth open he responded and she pulled back. Corvayne gave her a flat look. “Sorry, I knew you didn't want kisses but...”
She sneered down at him and seeing her without her glasses and with her hair down around her shoulders... Corvayne would freely admit it checked a lot of boxes. “As long as it's not romantic you dork. It's not a problem to kiss me when you're fucking me.”
He glanced down the stairs at the stakes blocking the door. “We probably wont find anywhere as defensible as this building again...” She interrupted him by wiggling next to him.
“Alright I hear you... and I feel it poking me.”
“About last night...” Corvayne started thinking about what happened but she pushed his arm.
“I said it was okay meat-head.” She frowned and her voice softened. “Sorry, you didn't like me calling you names.” She coughed and took a deep breath. “I can't have kids, so it doesn't matter. Now, this time I'm going to give you some pointers in case we ever get stuck in an elevator.”
A while later they were dressed and Corvayne felt a level of mental clarity and serenity that he hadn't had... ever? Wick had tied her hair back up into stupid looking braids that he now both loved and hated and was wearing her thick glasses which he still just hated. Only a little more color in her face gave away any hints what they had been up to. “All right. Get us outta here.”
He stopped a few impulses he had to compliment her or thank her or hug or anything. He held his fist up, and she bumped it. With that, they left behind the stone house and started back down the road. He had a long walk ahead to contextualize what happened and he settled on Wick dealing with an incredible amount of stress over the past day and using him to deal with it. Even so, a lot of the walk was him just being stunned at having gotten laid. A sort of metaphorical weight of expectations about his life and age felt lifted off his shoulders. Weight that he hadn't really ever expected to deal with. Wick for her part seemed relaxed and was talking about cryptids, a term he guessed was just a by-word for monster. The current subject was a creature called 'Mothman' who had been terrorizing various colonies for ages, usually in remote woods like the one they were walking through. The creature was thought to be psychic and able to predict the future, as it showed up just before disaster. He listened and occasionally asked question as Wick went through the different sightings.
The first pack of fur slugs they found that day was a trio just waiting in the road past a rise. Corvayne ducked as soon as he saw them, and Wick followed his lead. Not seeing any other monsters, he had a thought. The slugs were the type of thing he wished had been his first hunt, rather then an Ossiolisk that left him nearly dead from blood loss after it jumped out of a concealed pit and raked him with one of it's hundreds of shattered bone spikes on it's forelimbs. He looked at Wick, who was clutching her new sword.
“Do you want to try to fight one?” Corvayne gestured at the slugs.
“uh...Why?” She whispered back.
“One: if you need to fight later, having a little experience with controlled danger, having a fight you picked... even if it's not a difficult one, it will give you confidence and help you keep your head clear when things are not easy. Two: Because I can kill two with just spear moves from ambush instantly, but not three. Three: When you swung your blade last night you had better control over your swing then I admit I expected. I think you're good with a sword.”
“The thing I gotta worry about is their beaks, right? On the bottom?” She looked between him and the slugs.
“Yeah they hunt by knocking prey over then crawling onto them I'd guess. Their jaws are much harder to bring to bear then the claws of those dogs or even the dog's mouths. You let one charge, put your blade's point in it's way. Keep your grip on your weapon when it hits, then try to keep it pinned on your sword when it struggles. It will widen the wound. They slow down real fast when they bleed. A few seconds later? Dead slug.”
Wick nodded. “Got it.” Doubt crossed her face then and Corvayne saw her tremble as she spoke. “If it gets me down on the ground...”
He put a hand on her back and tried to summon the same sort of bullshit the warriors would tell little kids who were worried about their first hunt. “I'll have it spit roast and ready to cook it before it even scratches your jacket.”
Corvayne tightened his cloak and moved off into the woods before Wick could voice her doubts further, flanking to put two of the slugs in a line then creeping up to them. He could see Wick gripping her blade, split between looking for him and at the monsters. He caught her eye and nodded, just as the better hunters he was aping would, then sprinted forward. The creatures had to turn to see what the noise of leaves was and his use of [Storm Thrust] on top of also running at a charge drove him through both slugs, making a mess as the force of the blow caused one to pop like a balloon and skewered the other. Wind swirled in his wake, scattering monster parts and leaves and pine needles. It wasn't as bad as normal: This time most of the gore slid off his cloaked back.
Wick yelled a scratchy battle-cry as she came over the hill. A bad habit to fix but sometimes it helped newbies. The slug, perhaps seeing an easier target, hissed then started undulating along the ground to bowl into her. Wick stopped and held her blade ready, then with a perfect fencing jab punctured the monster and spun out of the way. A moment passed and the slug turned around, rime forming on the wound. Much slower it charged again and Wick did the same thing striking and this time bracing and forcing the blade down into the monster, causing the slug to leak bloody slush as it expired flailing helplessly.
Corvayne clapped and threw an arm around her shoulder. “Good kill!”
She was stunned for a moment, then laughed and threw her arm up, sword above her head exhilarated. “Ah ha HA!Fuck that slug!”
“That first hit, you did a really good job striking and pulling the blade out. It looked like a fencing stance, did you train with a rapier?”
She thought about it. “I wanted to, but after running from home I didn't... hmm.”
Wick then set her feet in a fencers stance, doing a flourish with the short sword then jabbing. “The length is wrong but yeah... maybe watching fencing is where I got it?”
He didn't think you could get the sort of natural motion he saw both times from just watching, but then again he had been doing impossible things he had only seen others do for the last day. “I think if we find small groups, you can take an enemy like that on your own. If it looks iffy, climbing a tree is fine.”
He cleaned his spear on the fur of the least-gory monster, and she copied him then belted the sheath around her shoulder. They kept going another hour before coming to a sparkling clear river running across the path. Someone had put stepping stones across it. Corvayne refilled their water.
Wick pulled at her shirt. “Can we swim?”
“I don't want to be caught naked in a fight.” There were always stories about people on patrol getting frisky and then having monsters attack them. For every funny tale there were two cautionary ones.
Wick gave him a look. “Well, I'm dirty. Because of you.”
Corvayne knew this was a fight he couldn't win nor one he wanted to win. They stripped and walked into the water. Both of them quickly agreed the water was too cold for anything but to actually clean themselves off and to wash their clothes. He made another fire even though it was before noon and they huddled next to each other on a stone that was probably once part of a bridge. His cloak, which dried instantly, was being drafted as a blanket for them.
“Can I tell you something weird?” Wick asked, rubbing her hands then holding them out of the cloak near the fire to warm them. He thought she looked pretty tiny out in the light of day.
Focus Corvayne. He glanced around to make sure that he wasn't missing any monsters then turned to Wick. “Sure.”
“I kinda like huddling naked next to a fire in the middle of nowhere! Might be a future booty call. Or even just a group camping thing. Not a date.”
What was a booty call? “Not that crazy: I overheard kids who would do long patrols in pairs with no clothes. Just be aware that you can get sunburn on your privates.”
“Didn't you mention fighting monsters out there? They fought naked?”
“I didn't say totally sane. I said it's not that crazy.” He smiled a little.
“So I said I wanted us to be partners... As I said I'm really trying to master the paranormal. A lot of the stuff with the occult is all tangled up with secret societies and other people who remind me of your weird hidden village. Terrible closed off groups. I've done tons of investigations and before this didn't have anything to show.”
Corvayne got where she was going. “So you want me to come with you when you're looking into this stuff?”
“This...” Wick gestured with one hand all around them. “This place might be an outlier. But...”
“But?” Corvayne matched her tone to get her to keep going.
“But if we get out... I want to do a real expedition here. I mean, to both see if we can get back in... and...”
She lifted up the sheathed sword. He had stressed they keep weapons near enough to defend themselves. “I want to see if this works outside. What is this place built for? How big are these layers? We saw ruins: who left them? Is it just window dressing or is this a real place?”
“Grunt would probably be in.” He thought about destroying goblins with his buddy. For some reason it struck him as... fun. He might be a little bit of a psychopath after all. He grabbed his undershorts and took a look at Wick since it was unlikely he'd get to see her naked again. “My clothes are dry.”
“Mine are a little damp but... warm enough from the fire. Lets press on.”
They dressed, put the fire out to avoid the possibility of adding a forest fire to their troubles, and Corvayne grabbed his pack. They were nearing a mountain pass, and the trail had been going up very gradually over the course of their trek. A little over half a mile from the stream the path was now climbing up roughly cut blue rock steps, winding up blue soil hills between trees, gradually getting them to a bluff. Looking back the view of the forest was breath taking. The pass wasn't far ahead. The next monster they found was a lone tentacle bird. At her request, Corvayne let Wick fight it while sitting back. She missed it with a jab when it charged and she got a peck from it's beak and slapped by a stray flailing tentacle, but kicked it back and managed to chop a leg off with a slice, causing it to flop around off balance until she hit it's neck and it fell over dead. After patching her shin up they kept going.
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“So with a short sword like this... what's the first move you can do?” She held out her freezing blade.
“Uh... I guess... Try [Backstab]. It works as long as you're attacking something's back. If it doesn't have a back, I'd guess it's based on if it's aware of you.”
“... when you said it, you said it weird. Weird. Backstab. I can't even say it right.”
“I can't help but emphasize it like that when I say it or think about that ability. I also can't tell you why it makes that sound.”
She kept the sword out, and took a few practice swings. “I admit I wasn't listening that hard to what your weapon sounds like against packs of screaming goblins. I wanna try it myself. Can you disable a monster and I'll see if I can get it from behind?”
“Of course. Actually that's a very good idea: if we face something strong, you being able to land a telling blow while I keep it's attention means you stay out of direct fire but still help.”
They were short on monsters however: the next half an hour was endless two foot tall steps in the rock face when the path wasn't winding them around trees growing on precarious ledges. The view over the woods now let them see that compared to the first two areas, the scale of the landmass was far beyond the cubes or even the multi-mile long plates and floating mountains of the previous floor. No floating islands marred the view above them, either. Wick was not used to climbing or hiking, so Corvayne stopped frequently to give her time to catch her breath, while claiming that he needed to sit for a minute or two.
“I wonder if we could build a cabin here.” She said as they sat on a step looking back at the jagged path they walked out of the tree line and the sort of blue forest.
Corvayne thought about some of the D-words in stories, ones that were alive and ate bodies and toyed with people who dared venture into them. “I think if we come in again... we'll see if there's bodies were we left them, then we'd know how this place operates with making changes to it.”
Standing back up, they arrived at the pass. There was an area of sloped bare rock with a dark blue path once more leading them up between the shadows of two huge rocks. After an exhausting push to the end they reached the summit and saw a massive lake on the other side, with bluffs and more forest and mountains, as well a cave a few steps down and off to one side that glowed a familiar blue.
Looking into it, Corvayne saw a stairway going up to the fourth floor, and Wick nodded and they walked about thirty winding feet up then out to what looked like a massive river full of sand bars. They had come from a rocky arch placed against one bank's bluff. Behind them and across what looked like two miles of river was another line of trees. Some of the sand bars had trunks laid across them. The river was very clean and Corvayne could see that while it ran fast, it didn't look deep. However, he could spot weird shapes on some of the dunes, something like rounded rocks sitting on the sand. They were all about two or three feet around. More monsters?
Nothing gained, nothing ventured. “I'm going to assume we will find the next stairway up by crossing. The paths seem to be intentional.” He pointed out how there was a fairly obvious line of packed sand and logs from where they were to at least halfway across. “Notice how there's clusters of those black rocks... I bet that's the main monster of this floor.” He scanned the entire river, taking a moment too to look back at the bank behind him. The view upriver and down river both vanished into shining mist. The sky was yellow as usual, with the trees more teal on this layer but with the usual red and blue trunks. He spotted on the embankment further down what he assumed was a goblin camp: it looked like the crude buildings he had seen on the second floor.
“Goblins possibly on the banks. Let's cross before we pick any fights with them.” Compared to slugs, the goblins were much more dangerous just because they actually had weapons. He didn't see any Goblins wandering out on the river, but there was a large form swimming away from them upstream. Giant beaver? Bear? It looked like a black blob in the water. More immediate: The first group of the black rocks were two logs away.
Corvayne took his time crossing the logs: they were large enough that it didn't require much balance, but they were partially submerged and the first one had water running over it. He also wanted to keep his eyes peeled for monsters in the water: possibly trying to grab them when they crossed and drag them under. He crossed and watched Wick balance with her hands out then hop onto the sand. For the second crossing he got up on the log and waited a beat to see if the stones got up. When they didn't move he once more checked the water. Ah-HA! There was one of those black stones on the bank, next to the log. “Wick, stay back on the log there... there's something in the water.”
He drew his weapon and poked the rock in the water. The moment he did the thing popped legs out of it's shell and ran up the bank. He saw the others on land unfold into what looked like crabs with alligator tails. They had crab eyes but shortened crocodile snouts. A very gross hybrid.
“Cute!” Wick said as she watched the little shelled lizard-crabs attack. Corvayne saw that they were not confident about just crawling up the side of the log and took a few steps back. The first crocrab ran up, suprisingly fast when it got lined up with where it wanted to go. Corvayne stabbed it in the head, and the thing's tough skull made the attack slip off. However, the spear still gummed up the monster's momentum and it was now driving the blade into the gap in the shell between it's neck and leg. Corvayne held firm, glad his boots tread gave him enough traction to stop the shelled lizard's charge. The monster was heavy enough that he didn't want to try throwing it while on a wet log. So he stepped back, spear darting out in a probing attack as the creature hissed in pain and rammed it's face once again into his weapon. This time it sliced the other side of it's neck, and trying to avoid the blade fell off the log. Corvayne noted that even the soft parts were hard to penetrate. He swapped to the butt of his spear, and tried a mace attack he'd seen Knocks-Off-Tables use. The older woman, despite looking like someone's well endowed aunt, was brutal with her dual maces. Corvayne preferred a shield so those matches had often resulted in bruises all up and down his arm.
[Cross-Skill: Beatdown] made him slam the back of his spear on the crocrab's head, knocking a bunch of teeth out before it slumped over onto the sand by the log. The wreath and perhaps that the end of the spear counting as a blunt weapon made it so he only felt a little winded, and he applied the same attack once more on the third and final monster. Wick didn't have any attackers on her, so she followed as he went island to island, checking for crabs in the water and using his spear's back to hammer them per-emptively. On an island with just one, he used his spear to break one of it's feet, causing the top-heavy shelled monster to stumble forward and land lamely on it's side.
“Ok, Wick, come here and see if you can use [Backstab].”
She hurried, perhaps worried the monster was going to get up. Corvayne stepped on it's jaw. Just like it's namesake lizard half, the thing couldn't open it's jaws with nearly the power it had to close it.
“Backstab!” Wick shouted, dinging the blade off a section of shell. Corvayne had to actually step out of the way of her wild swing. But before the monster could get up he once more had a foot on it's head. “You don't need to shout it. Maybe think about finding a weak point on it's back.”
She nodded, and stabbed out. This time there was a weird difference in the blade, it taking on a sort of wicked purple color for a moment. He heard the oh-so-satifsfying heavy chunking sound of the ability going off. The sword entered the monsters back and there was a fist sized hole that popped through the back of the shell, killing the monster instantly and freezing it.
“Sorry little Crab-a-dial.” Wick said with remorse. Then her moment of remorse was over and she took a picture of it and started cackling. “It worked! I can [Backstab]! Hahahah! It makes the BEST noise. I wanna do it again!”
Corvayne let her have her moment. He knew training to nail a technique and then showing it off out of nowhere was a pretty big thrill.
Crossing the river was only a fraction of the distances they had walked on the previous layer, but the need to use skills to safely kill the monsters that were sprinkled across islands and in liberal numbers ground their progress to a fraction of the pace. Wick had offered to start fighting next to him but he explained that if she injured her foot by having a Crab-croc... whatever they were... if it bit her then he would have to carry her and fight at the same time. She conceded that slow and steady would be better this time, and Corvayne carefully fought his way across the logs.
Near the halfway mark he noticed the black blob had been swimming back their way, and decided to book it back over a few logs to move out of it's way. Some of the channels the logs went over were deeper, and the form followed those. While about a quarter of a mile distant, he guessed whatever it was that was patrolling the water had to be twenty feet long.
“Could you beat something that big?” Wick whispered from where they had crouched, half hidden behind one of the log bridges. Corvayne shaded his brow to try to see it better, with no real change. There was too much glittering on the water from a low angle to get more detail.
“Maybe? If it's not strong.” He considered both a large bear and a large beaver. “But something like that has reach with it's bite. I think you'd want a bunch of rifles to at least do some damage before it closes and you meet it with pikes. You notice with all these things trying to rush at me, most of my fighting is getting them to impale themselves. Assuming I don't need to finish a fight quick.”
Wick nodded. The blob was moving out of sight down the river.
“Does your spear do more damage then a rifle? I'm not doubting you. I'm curious.”
Corvayne shrugged. “It really depends on the rifle. I can't match any rail weapons...”
“You shouldn't, they are for ship to ship combat! Why would you even compare your spear to a rail gun?”
They are both designed to kill people? “They both work pretty well against infantry.”
“Why train with a spear if you have rail guns then?”
Corvayne shrugged. “I don't know. I asked them the same thing and they told me I'd never get it.” He looked at his weapon. The black tip caught the light of the sun and gleamed. “And it's a moot question to ask as I don't have a rail gun to use. Just my spear.”
“Well, we'll get you set up with a sidearm at least. I owe you that.”
With the blob out of sight, they advanced over the next sets of logs. One fight had seven crocrabs pop out of the water behind a single one on land, which forced a running battle where they tried to swim behind him while he was on a log. [Juxtapose] fixed being flanked, and Wick did a very good job just keeping away, batting at a stray attacker with her blade while running back and forth to make it stop and turn, something it had trouble doing. Corvayne used [Backstab] on the monster to put it down, then finished off the last two of the swarm. Late in the afternoon, they reached the other bank. Mercifully, they didn't need to navigate around goblin tribes after fighting crabs all day: the last log more or less lead them to an arch with a stairway up to the fifth and final floor before the exit.
Both he and Wick looked back at a pile of dead crabs. She turned back to him and offered her hand for a high five. He smiled and slapped it playfully, then passed through the arch into the dark tunnel up. Thinking about the time spent with just him and Wick, Corvayne admitted he felt a little bit of regret that the next floor was likely the last.