Corvayne had never actually hunted in the woods before. With the rain and all the plants, on top of being around Wick, he was doubly distracted. Still there were well made paths and he could mentally thumb through all the books he'd read about chasing monsters into the woods. He kept his eyes open for something that would suggest a tall monster: fur or broken branches far from the ground. Places where the brush was disturbed frequently. Vocalizations. Supposedly the monsters stank. Corvayne stopped every so often to take a big sniff. He was happy to report that the park smelled nice, mostly of pine.

All of the tension he had felt in the first few minutes of being out in the woods at night was melting away: they had been walking for what he guessed was two hours now, and he hadn't seen signs of any critters... well a few curious racoons. Maybe if they turned the lights off they'd have better luck?

“No way I'm turning my light off. How the FUCK am I supposed to see?” Wick asked, waving her light around.

Corvayne didn't think it was that dark, but didn't press the issue when he figured it out. “Oh right. You need to capture a video.”

Wick shined her light back on the path. “Besides, I have a little cheat to find them. See, I got hunches that help me figure out what to do. It's telling me to go this way.”

Corvayne thought about his own danger sensing instincts. “That's handy. What do you... do we need to find? What will be enough to establish bigfeet are here?”

Wick had a laminated map she pulled out and looked at, then folded up before responding. “If we get a good video that's enough for me. The stuff about bodies is not realistic. Still, I want to get readings here and hopefully, once we find one, I want to test the area it's in to see if it affects the environment.” She patted her bag, then reached into her pocket and checked her portable screen at the time, then put it back.

Corvayne thought about this. “Something like the guy who thought the creatures could fold space?”

Wick made a happy squeal. “You were listening! A lot of people take bathroom breaks during video parts.”

“I was listening to your presentation very carefully.” He would not go on a mission where he didn't soak up every bit of the briefing.

“So: I need to find everything out about the fringes of reality... and I've done a lot of stuff. You know. Meditation. Drugs that expand the mind. Seance. Past life readings.” Wick had weird energy when she got excited, almost nervous, and Corvayne felt like he was approaching something large under murky water. Or what books made him think about swimming in a deep lake must be like: The only place to swim in his village had been crystal clear and shallow. Wick just kept talking as he realized he had stopped and started jogging to catch up.

“See, remote sensing got SOMETHING in my head working. You know they say it's all about the RIGHT mindset? I have these hunches, but never one as clear as this. Paranormal research is a science but you gotta follow your gut too, you know?”

“What's remote sensing?” He asked, turning while speaking to make sure they were not being flanked by anything.

She didn't spend much time checking her back out. Maybe it was safer then he thought, or she had some bad habits. Wick instead moved into a lecture, her scratchy voice somewhat hard to hear over the the pitter patter of rain. “Usually it's like, you try to focus on someone or something when you sleep, and try to match how they sleep, and your dreams lead you there. The Collective has research that suggests it's not as crazy as it would seem.” Corvayne's mind kept imagining her in bed. He might to do some meditation himself: Going through his spear forms helped a lot with being distracted but he couldn't do that on the trail.

“Why would that be crazy?” He didn't mean for it to be rhetorical but Wick was nodding, turning back to look at him.

“I know! It's not crazy! It makes sense!” she was smiling. Corvayne felt his flagging attention pick up a little. For a few minutes at least.

When he felt his focus starting to wane, he swept the light around again. The same hilly woods trail they had been on looked like any given section they had walked through. Maybe the parts where there were no trees looking off the hill had really great views? He wondered if they were going to spend all night walking. No wait, perhaps the rain would pick up and they would be forced to huddle together?

He'd read about that in a lot of books he'd read about quests and adventure. In those stories being stuck together during bad weather frequently lead to sex, and most of the time situations where two people shared shelter in the rain did NOT involve any spilled olive oil to clean up. He had a few minutes of quiet to allow himself to explore the possibility that at some point he might have sex with another person, maybe even Wick! He tempered the thought with both how every other relationship in his life soured, and one of Dawn stalking him through the warehouse or woods with a carrot peeler. It worked to keep him focused on the task. Mostly.

Corvayne was just about to ask her if they should turn back soon or if she thought the rain was getting worse when she reached a trail fork where someone had placed a 'TRAIL CLOSED' sign in the middle of the path branching off.

“Bingo!” She cheered.

Corvayne looked at her, then the sign. “You think the bigfoot is using the sign to hide?”

“No no no... look the park rangers probably put it up because the lair is back there!”

“Ok, lead on.”

Wick looked back at him, thankfully shining her light low rather then in his face like the last few times. Corvayne did his best to give her what he thought was a charming smile as she spoke. “You're not going to lecture me about how that's not why the signs there?”

“You know what you're doing. I'm just here as the spear.” Corvayne emphasized this by stamping his spear doubling as a walking stick on the ground.

“How refreshing! I see why Grunt was singing your praises!”

The thought of Grunt singing an opera ballad got him quietly laughing to himself.

Moving into the blocked off section of trails, they found downed trees blocking the path more then a few times. Some trees were bent, either in shelter or something else. Some of them were broken over the trail, and Wick stopped a few times to shine her light up there before stepping through. Walking through the dense ferns and bushes to the side of the trail left his boots heavy with mud. Corvayne was climbing over a tree when he spotted something that seemed very odd to him. The rain finding its way past his cloak suddenly felt cold rather then just cool.

“Hey Wick, why are there stairs here?”

He gestured to a grassy area off the trail where what looked like a varnished wood set of stairs was just leading to nowhere. Rain was soaking carpet laid on top of it. Twenty steps or so, then a landing with nothing on it or around it. What was odd was it didn't look weathered; even the bathrooms near the start of the trail had peeling paint and half rusted doors. It looked like it should have been indoors somewhere: there was no way it wasn't new given how the reddish color of the wood stood out from everything else in the park.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Hmm. Don't touch it. Stairs in the woods are supposedly linked with people disappearing... and associated with really bad luck. Might be related to fairies. Or demons. Not quite what we are looking for though. Nice catch!” She took a few pictures, with perhaps exaggerated care to stay three feet away from the stairs. There was indeed something about the stairs that Corvayne felt was off, almost familiar? “I should get a reading...”

Corvayne started using his own flashlight to look around the woods after a moment of blinking. “You mean it's some sort of fairy monument? Hmm. Interesting.” Was it just him, or did the rain suddenly seem muted? There was also the faint smell of rot now drifting through the rain.

The first howl came from woods ahead. To Corvayne it was actually sort of a cute scream compared to Dune Reavers, Dusk Claws, Rotpedes, and so on. Perhaps it was the bigfoot they were looking for! Wick stepped away from the stairs and shined her light out to the edge of the clearing they were at, clearly excited “Oh, that's not a wolf or a bear!”

“Great, you'll get to meet your big...” Corvayne's ear picked up another howl joining it, from off to their left. Then another howl, from the right. Then one from behind them.

Wick started whipping her flashlight around as the few became a chorus. Her hand was shaking. “I think there IS a breeding population here, after all.” She didn't sound so happy-go-lucky all of the sudden.

Corvanyne shrugged and pulled his spear off his backpack, and closed one eye. “If we can't capture a live one, is there a problem if we just kill one that attacks us and bring it back as proof?”

“Dude, unless you got a FUCKING machine gun in your bag we are NOT making it... wait you EXPECTED us to catch one? Alive?!” Her voice sounded strained. She was panicking.

“I wouldn't rely on any sort of automatic weapon unless it was part of a group defense or we had full open ground in one direction. Also that's why we came: Getting proof is good, a living one would work best for that, correct?” He could see with his flashlight dark shapes coming out of the woods. He sighed. The numbers were not great. They should break through, but he couldn't do that and keep Wick safe.

“Stand by the staircase and turn your light off.” He flicked his own light off.

“What!? No!” Wick caught the eyes of one of the things coming out of the wood and they glowed red before it covered it's face with a hairy arm. Creepy.

Corvayne gave her a look. “I can't see as well with it on.”

“It's pitch black during a rainstorm!!! With monsters! Why the hell would you turn it off!!” The howling and hooting was getting louder.

“Turn your light off so I can adjust my eyes to the dark please. You said you trusted me. Help me keep you safe.” He did not want to knock her light out of her hands. Wick was hyperventilating but actually turned the light off with a whimper. Corvanye did a little stretch and opened his eye, the woods coming into relief with dark shapes treading through the barely visible grass. The shapes were very dark compared to the grass and trees, thankfully. Some of the shapes had stopped as the light went out. Corvayne had put his own light away now and was gripping his spear double handed. It was just like any other monster attack. Don't let them get near Wick and go for killshots on everything.

“I'm sorry Corvayne, it's my fault you're going to die...” Wick said, her voice cracking.

“These guys are that strong?” He had gotten the impression she'd never fought a bigfoot before. A faint trace of worry came through him. He pushed his own doubts down: he was not going to let anyone die on his first date. Was this a Cascadian date? Well, either way he'd protect Wick.

The closest furry monster roared and from thirty feet down the trail started running. A quick glance and Crovayne saw that there were almost fifty of them out of the woods now, two just a few feet behind the lead bigfoot. If they were too tough to fight, they'd have to try going up the stairs to hold the group off. The last stray thought he had before contact was that the things really did reek. Then it was time for work, his legs pushing him forward and his spear darting out for the neck of the first monster, then pulling back and snapping out for the second monster who ran right to him. The third monster was inside his striking range then, trying to grab him. He felt instinct pulling him, telling him to...

[Juxtapose]

Weird! It was a blend of instinct and basic footwork as he leaned into the monster while ducking and taking two steps that felt almost too fast for his body to handle, bringing his spear around as suddenly he was facing the confused monsters back... which was pushed to where he had been... He changed the grip on his spear as he wheeled, putting one hand near the blade and letting it slide so he was gripping the shaft about a foot from the head.

[Cross Skill: Backstab]

Why was his head calling it out!? He saw the result of doing so was impressive: the ten inch blade at the end of the spear blew a hole in the monster wide enough he could probably squeeze through but he didn't have time to think about it: The monsters from the sides were swarming in now. He took a breath and felt the rain around him shift.

[Flow Like Water]

He slipped off to the side, his spear finding another pair of necks. Spears-Like-Water would have wrung his neck if she had known he had watched her practice then copied her style. Why was he thinking in brackets in the middle of a pack of enraged beasts? He couldn't say. Each step he felt himself almost blur, directed by his plan of moving in a horseshoe shape to keep the herd of monsters away from Wick. Each step he took his spear would dart out to find a throat or where he guessed the heart was, then snake back in as he took his next step to move him around swinging fists and away from one that lunged at him. He took a step back, letting his instincts guide him as the monsters lined up in a way that felt right.

[Cross Skill: Circle of death]

Diamond-In-Passing seemed to prefer giant two handed monstrosity swords. She would have stopped the fight to tell him how poorly he just performed her favorite little move or how using it with a spear was ineffective, but four of the dark shapes crowding around the hill dropped as he spun a full circle, spear blade somehow finding all four rather then ending the wild swing by getting stuck in something. Their bodies were suddenly limp obstacles as he twisted the last part of the swing into a wild thrust into and out of a monster's gut as it tried to run past Wick and the stairs to get him with an overhead two handed slam.

The problem now, he thought with the part of his mind not focused on finding the right places to grip his gore covered spear, was that he had monsters coming at his back now and sooner or later one would turn on the girl or hit him in the head. He had a moment where the deaths of four monsters at once caused hesitation, then there were more roars and his preferred horseshoe movement was quickly becoming impossible. One of them did turn and reach for Wick, and she had to let it rip her backpack off her or be dragged off with it.

“Stairs! Up the stairs!” He used a flourish in front of him to make space, then checked to make sure Wick was out of the way. She had found the stairs so he instinctively did something was beyond impossible.

[Cross Skill: Shieldwall]

For two steps he felt like he was holding six spears arrayed in a fan. One lumbering monster was going too fast to stop themselves from running right into one of the phantom spears and was impaled, knocking Corvayne to his backfoot under the pressure of the creature before the spears faded and he was on the staircase, four steps up then turning to start dispatching creatures. They hadn't started grabbing for his ankles yet but it was a matter of time, even as he jabbed the lead creature off the stairs, both arms clutching it's chest as the ones crowding the lowest step had to back away. Wick was already standing on the second to last step. He was out of reach of the monsters but could see that he'd have to fight all night. The entire field now was covered in milling forms of monsters. He wasn't going to be able to hold the staircase forever: He had to jab one monster that was climbing on top of another's shoulders. And once the bodies piled up they'd grab Wick and it'd be over.

An instinct, suddenly strongly flooding into his mind, was that the staircase was the way out. It was the same sort of instinct pushing him to do nearly impossible moves with his spear. He pushed power into his arms, filling them with his intent to clear the stairs off for just a second.

[Storm Thrust]

His arms shot forward, and it felt like a gust of wind extended from him, causing the beasts near the stairs to stumble. He turned and threw Wick over his shoulder. “I hope this works!”

She had been screaming anyway so there wasn't much change as he stepped on the top stair and, fighting a sense of foreboding, stepped off the edge above the swarm of black shapes.