Coye Vol 3 Ch 8

Coye spent his morning learning all manner of interesting things about Byng in rapid succession. Things he never knew before. She was a weird girl, but a kind one. She was respectful of her foreign Gods. For the most part, she got along with Suzette, and above all, she seemed to really, really like him.

Now, Coye learned how thorough the young Gengaggi could be when she wanted to be. It had been ten minutes since he and Byng entered the forest in opposite directions. In that brief span of time, Coye had already dodged more traps than a seasoned dungeon crawler might see in their entire career.

While Coye was slaying Owlbears, chatting with Tammy, listening to Flowers the Bard, and eating Shayla out, Byng kept herself busy.

Very busy.

She'd rigged up a staggering number of traps to use against him during their Zurgarrah, and Coye didn't know whether to be impressed with her dedication or concerned over how badly Byng desired this life-changing prize she planned on asking him for upon her victory. Maybe Suzette wasn't the only one who hadn't slept last night? Byng had drunk three whole cups of coffee with plenty of sugar, come to think of it...

"I knew there was something fishy when she told you to go west...!" Shayla commented as Coye busied himself hopping over a tripwire rigged to trigger a net full of small boulders that were set up over on a nearby hill. "Like she planned it out ahead of time!"

"Not much we can do about it now," Coye sighed, leaning onto the nearest dark and towering tree to catch his bearing and scout the surroundings in greater detail. What he saw was far from comforting. "I see traps in every direction... no matter which way I go, I'm gonna end up slowed down a whole bunch..."

"What about clearing them out as you run?" Shayla suggested. "You're pretty darn fast on the uptake, right? Just figure out a way to activate them as soon as you see them, and then you can keep barreling forward without having to jump and dodge all over the place!"

Coye thought that might work, but this plan had a distinct drawback- his lack of a projectile. His sword beam was out of the running, since earlier in the day he’d smacked himself to steady his nerves, and he only had so many throwing knives on his person. Still, it was worth a shot, and he didn't have anything to lose beyond more time.

"Give me something to throw, and I'll try it out," Coye said, giving Shayla the chance to solve this problem for him.

She scanned the area around them, and the solution didn't take long to find. All across the forest floor were decently-sized pebbles just perfect for tossing. Shayla smirked, proud of herself well before it was time to actually celebrate.

"Open up your palms, baby!" She demanded, her voice lilting with confidence.

Coye did as he was told, and Shayla used her magic to lift a steady supply of little rocks into his hand, where they fell with a slight rattling sound as she let go.

"Nice. These should do just fine." Coye took one of the rocks into his right hand and tossed it into the distance, nailing a well-hidden snare that Shayla hadn't even noticed. It activated, snapping to life uselessly only to capture nothing. "Thanks."

"Yeah, yeah. Less thanking, more running! We gotta find some of those damn weasels!"

"Right," Coye nodded and resumed running. This time, he cleared the path ahead with a flurry of rocks slung left and right. Along the way, he passed two more tripwires that were each set to dump falling logs on him from above, three pitfalls, and even a bizarre contraption that seemed to be a homemade bear trap constructed out of animal bones. No doubt it would've dealt some nasty damage if he was unlucky enough to stroll right over it, Coye thought.

Shayla's idea proved itself time and again. Coye was making better time now that he didn't have to swerve around all over the place, but the sheer number of traps on this path made Shayla wonder aloud, "Sheesh, is Byng trying to kill you or hook up with you?! I thought I had the chick pegged, but I honestly can't even tell anymore!"

Coye was unsure himself, but he also used this chance to gain a little sympathy, asking, "Does this mean you don't blame me anymore for not getting that Byng was into me?"

Shayla shrugged and rolled her eyes, deciding she would cut him a little slack. "Maybe... I guess you got a point. It wasn't always this bad, was it?"

"No, she's never gone this all-out before..." Coye shook his head, tossing a pebble into a pressure plate that set off a troubling dart gun from a bush a few paces away. How in the hell did Byng even craft a pressure plate? Coye wondered about that and shook his head, putting the thought to the side. He knew he was only getting distracted.

"She really wants that prize, huh?" Shayla remarked. The pressure plate had impressed her, too.

"Seems so," Coye sighed.

There was a lengthy pause.

"You know that if she wins, the prize is gonna be your dick, right?"

"T-Trying to keep focused, Shayla," Coye mumbled, fighting off a fierce blush.

"Ok... but it totally is."

"Shayla,"

"Right, right..."

Another few minutes of hunting passed, and there still wasn't the slightest trace of Reaver Weasels to be found no matter where they looked. The only thing that could be seen were traps, each of which Coye dismantled from afar with expert precision. Shayla was beginning to wonder if he had some sort of sixth sense when it came to detecting these. She knew his instincts to be sharp, but this seemed like something the boy had prior experience in.

"How the hell are you even picking up on all of these?" She asked, unable to hold back her growing curiosity any longer. "I'm only noticing like... half of them as they come up, tops!"

Coye exhaled, throwing a rock onto yet another pressure plate. This time it caused a strange, scarecrow-esque contraption to spring out of the nearby bushes. It threw out its arms and attempted to embrace whoever had triggered the trap, only to end up hugging nothing but air.

"Byng is good, but she doesn't know that this isn't the first time I've had to survive in a situation..." He said, his voice trailing off as he began thinking back to memories of long ago.

"Yeah? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Um," Coye stopped running, his eyes growing distant. "Dad's training was..." he paused, thinking long and hard for the correct word. What he landed on was, "...Meticulous."

"...Meticulous, huh?" Shayla cringed, sensing his surface emotions and finding them very unpleasant to consider.

"Very," Coye blinked, but it seemed to Shayla as if the candle of his mind had been snuffed out, leaving only emptiness in its place.

"...Coye? Hello?" Shayla called out, but there was no response.

She gulped as a whole myriad of things started making sense to her suddenly, like how Coye always managed to wake up at the slightest sign of danger or how his perception was nothing short of supernatural despite his dull wits. After all, few people could tell when a Fairy was stalking them. What had it taken the boy to cultivate such talents at such a young age?

Shayla couldn't even imagine, but she did find herself swelling with a new sense of admiration for her partner and how cool he could be at times.

"Ah, sorry... got a little off-track, there..." Coye said, centering himself on the here and now and not the past- the brutal, bloody past... "That's enough about that, anyway. We, um, we need to keep pressing onward, so... let's move it."

And so they did.

As the pair delved further and further into the forest, Byng's nigh endless gauntlet of traps and setbacks became increasingly sparse until both were sure they'd gotten out of the danger zone altogether. And what a relief it was. It wasn't like Byng could've rigged the entire woods, but the amount of ground she covered was genuinely staggering- especially given that she only had less than a day's worth of setup time.

Coye figured that Byng already had a significant advantage as it was. Her speed was remarkable, her mastery of the forest likely surpassed his own, and she was the one to pick out the quests, yet he didn't let any of this drag him down. Instead, he found this served as an excellent source of motivation.

However, the fact remained that despite all her advantages, Byng still saw fit to rig things even further in her favor. Coye couldn't afford to hold back. Now that things had cleared up, he could focus better on looking for any signs of his elusive targets.

A couple of minutes spent searching led the adventurer to needles mixed in with the dirt and grass below, and not long after that, he found plenty of those same needles sticking out of the trunks of various trees. It looked like one or more Reaver Weasels had an altercation around these parts, or maybe they were hunting? Coye couldn't be sure, though eventually, these needles led him to a trail of tracks he could actually follow.

They were fresh, and they took the duo to their first score of the day.

Coye and Shayla watched the rascal from afar, hiding behind a thick tree as they studied the monster's intentions. As of that moment, it sat squarely in the center of a somewhat clear area of the forest. Sunlight actually managed to break down from a few openings in the canopy above, a rare delight that allowed them to see the beast in greater detail.

The weasel was in the middle of enjoying a fat pigeon that it had shot down with its quills. Holding the bird in its grubby little rodent hands, it tore at its food with sharp teeth, ripping flesh straight from the bone and covering its mouth with feathers and blood. Simply put, it was distracted, which gave its unseen adversaries plenty of time to strategize.

Although weak, Coye couldn't just jump in on a Reaver Weasel. He'd made that mistake before, once. He winced upon remembering what it was like to be stuck full of needles, and overall he wasn't keen on the prospect of repeating such an experience. It was all too easy for an adventurer to underestimate one of these speedy varmints only to lose their eye- or worse- as a result.

"Anything you can use to knock it out from here?" Coye whispered to his partner.

"Hmm..." Shayla looked around their surroundings once more, and her gaze soon happened upon a medium-sized rock roughly the size of a human head. It was mixed in amongst the tall grass next to a patch of mushrooms, its gray hues sticking out amidst the dark greens.

"Yeah, I got an idea..." she said, rubbing her chin as she so often did when scheming was afoot.

Coye looked in the direction Shayla was scheming and raised a suspicious eyebrow. "Um... more rock throwing? Is that how we'll be solving all our problems today?"

"If you don't like my ideas, don't ask me for them!" Shayla grumbled before extending her hand toward the rock in question. "Any objections, or is nailing a weasel with a rock too good for you all of a sudden? Huh?"

"By all means," Coye muttered, hanging his head. Elegance mattered very little to him. It was all about results.

"Good!" She smirked, snapping her fingers.

The rock rose out of the rustling grass and hovered several feet off the ground. Before Coye even knew it, it was sent flying right toward the monster at high speed. Shayla added a gust of wind to her telekinetic strike for a little bit of extra oomph. The weasel would've dodged if she hadn't, and they couldn't have that. Its twitchy reflexes made it a difficult target as it was.

The Reaver Weasel did end up sensing the attack. The monster dropped its meal and faced down the projectile, but it was too late. The rock beamed it straight on the center of its head. It didn't look like it cracked the skull, but the weasel flew back several feet on impact. Coye had to act fast- It would only be stunned for a few seconds.

"Heck yeah!" Shayla pumped her fist, congratulating herself on her aim's sharpness. "All yours, baby!"

"Right," Coye nodded and sidestepped out of cover, already building up energy for a big Quick Step till his foot burst with power. Byng's speed still stuck out in his mind, which inspired Coye to test himself.

He kicked off the ground and unsheathed his sword, and while he was now confident he wouldn't be able to match Byng's agility, he was at least faster than the Reaver Weasel. Coye lopped its head off mid-dash just as the beast stood up and grabbed at its aching skull.

It should've ended there, but a reflexive muscle spasm surged through its body before death and initiated its tail's defense mechanism. Spines flew, mostly in unrelated directions, but one outlier was lucky enough to pierce Coye in his right leg.

"Gah-" Coye clenched his entire body at the sudden pain but refused to buckle, letting out only a little grunt. He couldn't activate Steel Soul in time, so the offending attack lodged itself half an inch in his outer thigh. It wasn't anything concerning, but he was mildly irritated over his magic sword losing its power so early in the day.

Coye's Quick Step petered out, and his landing was rougher than expected. He was on the verge of losing his balance, but he stopped himself from tumbling at the last second by digging his boots hard into the ground beneath his feet. This emergency brake helped keep him from falling, but it did precious little to quell his partner's queasy stomach.

"URK-" Shayla heaved, her face green. "What've we said about warning me, damn it...?! Every. Damn. Time!"

"I had to be quick about it," Coye countered, his hand grasping the needle sticking out of his right leg. He kept a straight face as he pulled it out, wincing only slightly.

Once recovered of her own momentary affliction, Shayla cringed at Coye's wound. "Yeesh, you need some help with that? I can heal you up."

"No," he shook his head. "Save your mana. It's not that deep."

"You're the boss," Shayla relented since he didn't seem concerned about the damage. She figured it genuinely wasn't that big of a deal if that was the case, and conserving mana was a good strategy. The day promised to be long, and there was no telling when they might need to bust out her powers.

Coye knelt down and judged his prey's lifeless corpse, finding it acceptable. He then stashed it into the loaner Bag of Holding- head and all. When he noticed that Shayla was making a weird face at him, he defensively said, "I'll process the head later- more eyeballs to sell to that alchemist guy I told you about."

"That's not creepy or anything,"

"You're the one trying to get me to save money so that I can move out of the Guild sometime..."

"Alright, I get the picture... Sorry for disrespecting the grind, baby. Keep on hustling." She teased.

Coye stood up, looking a little dejected. "We aren't gonna be able to, um... to hustle if we don't find more weasels."

"Ain't that the truth..." Shayla sighed. After a brief moment of introspection, she noticed something odd. "Y'know, it's kind of weird that we haven't seen that many yet. It's supposed to be their breeding season, right?"

"Hm... yeah..." Coye nodded. "That is a little suspicious. You think this is another reason Byng chose to go east?"

"Baby, you read my mind... I bet you anything that she headed straight to a hotspot, that crafty bitch!"

Coye thought back to what he read on the quest flier, namely, the logging camps that were attacked. He felt a fool for not thinking of it sooner, but Grimmus and Lucassi were the eastern camps. Damn it.

"You think we should head that way, too?" He asked, dejected over his thoughtlessness.

"I don't see how it could hurt," Shayla suggested, and then they were off as soon as Coye started running due east from their current position.

He skidded to a halt not even a few seconds later, an incredulous look on his face. Coye couldn't believe it, but he leaned over, picked up a pebble from the ground, and tossed it into a brand new pitfall trap just a few paces away. The fake grass covering caved in, swallowing itself into its shallow depths. If that wasn't bad enough, he could see another two obvious traps lying in wait further down the trail.

"No way," he said, equal parts shocked and amazed. "Did Byng really plan this far ahead?"

"This is crazy... she predicted you might catch on to her little scheme and follow after her!" Shayla exclaimed, appreciating the wiles of a fellow schemer. "What're you gonna do?"

"The only thing I can," Coye shrugged. "Go even faster."

"W-Wait, you don't mean-"

"Yep," the boy nodded solemnly.

"Come the fuck on, baby," Shayla groaned, breaking out into a series of exaggerated sobs. "Why do you do this to me...?"

The determined adventurer stockpiled another handful of pebbles and resumed his running. This time he aided his speed with a series of Quick Steps spaced out at an excellent pace. Triggering the traps was a bit harder now that he was moving well past his average speed, but even then, Coye didn't miss a single one and continued his pace uninterrupted- much to the displeasure of Shayla's poor stomach.

At least navigating this new series of interruptions didn't take as long as the first gauntlet. Byng's machinations started to dry up after roughly ten minutes of running at his full velocity, and he'd traveled a good deal east in that short amount of time. All it cost him was a little of his stamina and an easily cleaned mess on his shoulder pauldron. Once he wound down, Coye wiped up Shayla's shame, apologized for her discomfort, and went back on the hunt.

It didn't take long to see how good of an idea changing locales really was.

Almost as soon as he started, Coye came upon Reaver Weasel tracks going practically every direction- save for west. Not only that but there were discharged spines all over the place and more fresh dung than he knew what to do with. Taking his pick from all of the different leads available to him, Coye chose the simplest one and started following the closest set of tracks.

This path led him a short distance, ending in a pair of Reaver Weasels enraptured in the middle of a violent mating session. Here, the forest was continually rent by the sounds of hissing and pained screams brought on by countless bites and scratches. It was like watching two whirlwinds going at it, each rejecting the other but spinning into their partner all the same.

Mating season was more intense than Coye thought it would be. He stared off at the copulating monsters with a deep red blush on his face until Shayla snapped him out of it.

"Stop staring and get in there, you dummy! Don't dilly-dally! Now's the perfect time to let 'em have it!" She whispered, slapping his pauldron with her open palm.

He drew his sword as he crouched, hiding amid the tall grass where he would go unseen. Although he had plenty of chances to go and slay the beasts, Coye idled. He never took pity on the monsters he slew- a job was a job- but having recently awoken to the pleasures of the flesh, he felt a bizarre sympathy for his prey. Cutting them down now would just be wrong... well, maybe not wrong, but it would leave him a little upset.

"Coye?" Shayla looked up at him and saw the hesitation on his face. "Oh, come on... don't tell me you feel sorry for these oversized rats?"

"N-No, it's just-"

"If you do it quickly enough, they won't even know what happened! What better way to go, am I right?" Shayla admitted killing the monsters like this was a little on the 'fucked’ side of things, but they were already off to a late start, and her sympathy toward anything that would eat her if given a chance was lower than low.

Coye thought about it for another moment and sighed, clenching his blade even tighter to calm his nerves. "I guess you're right," he accepted with a sad nod. He reminded himself that these things weren't innocent little animals frolicking in the forest. They were violent monsters that needed to be put down one way or another.

Now was as good a time as any.

One Quick Step and two slashes later, both Reaver Weasels went down. Their heads fell to the grass. Blood, and other fluids, spilled out and pooled on the grassy ground. This time, no spines shot off. The killing blow was too fast for the beasts to process what had happened. Coye looked at his work and frowned but collected his trophies all the same, stashing them into the magic bag.

"Hey, hey... don't be so glum! Those things died so that you can get laid with Byng! Isn't that reason enough to be thankful for their sacrifice?" Shayla asked, leaping to some absurd conclusions in an attempt to lessen his guilt.

"I-I mean, I guess so... t-that's not really my goal here, though... with Byng, I mean..." Coye stammered though the Pixie knew he was more interested in the prospect than he let on. She decided not to press him on it for once.

As soon as he was done feeling sorry for his prey, Coye continued the hunt, and what followed was a flurry of rapid-fire successes.

Coye and Shayla were coming across a new Reaver Weasel every couple of minutes in this crook of the woods. A few of the rabid beasts put up a slight struggle if they managed to catch wind of the adventurer before he struck, but they fell in the end, too. Even those who tried to run away were dispatched by Shayla's expert rock-throwing skills, giving Coye ample chance to do his thing.

For the most part, the duo was racking up kills steadily.

Half an hour later, Coye had just bagged his seventh weasel with little resistance, save for at the very end. The little bastard was lucky enough to impale Coye's left arm with three needles in its last few seconds of life. After stashing the kill away, Coye slumped against a nearby tree and pulled them out, which hurt worse than the one that pricked his leg. They pierced a bit deeper, causing him to grit his teeth on their way out.

Shayla couldn't watch. The sight of the act gave her unpleasant chills. "If you're not gonna let me touch you up, at least take a swig of one of those potions of yours!" She begged.

"Planning on it," Coye groaned as he threw the needles off to the side, his bicep bleeding a small, yet steady, stream of blood as it ached. He felt sorry for the maid who cleaned up his gear. Now his tunic and the sweater beneath it were freshly reddened, and it'd require a brand new washing as soon as he returned home.

As promised, Coye took out one of the crimson potions from his toolbelt, uncorked the top, and took a conservative sip. His pained areas grew warm as the muscles started stitching themselves back together right as rain in only a few seconds. The surface wounds closed. Then, his veins throbbed at a lightning pace, circulating fresh blood to replace what he lost. He regretted dipping into his potions so soon, but his refill should be coming tomorrow if he remembered correctly.

Even if they weren't, though, his father grilled into Coye the belief that health potions were never to be over-relied on.

They were a crutch that many adventurers grew dependent on. Indulging in them day after day could leave you feeling invincible, making you more likely to lose sight of your abilities until you make a mistake so grave that a potion can't bring you back from it. On top of that, there were even cases where a potion's accelerated healing effect brought the body additional stress by forcing it to speed things along. However, that wasn't a concern over such a slight wound, and Coye was fine.

Once recovered, he gave his arm a good flex and approved of how it felt. A stray thought came to mind. "Byng must have things real easy in this matchup... being able to snipe them from afar without worrying about their spines, I mean..."

"For sure, that's probably why she picked them as the target. At this rate, though, I suspect she might've already killed fifteen weasels in advance," Shayla laughed. "After all those traps, I wouldn't put it past her!"

Coye realized this was a possibility, but he didn't find it likely. "I'd be able to tell if the kills weren't fresh."

"I'm just saying..."

"Do you really think Byng would be that desperate, Shayla?"

"Oh, trust me, baby..." Shayla smirked. "She's plenty desperate."

"...Right," Coye sheathed his sword after cleansing it of blood with a strike to the air, then started looking around for the next weasel. There were only eight left. By then, Byng almost certainly had the lead, but he wasn't going to give up and just assume they'd already lost.

Rather than finding what he was after, the forest had other plans.

Coye experienced a surge of dread from off in the distance as he walked toward what looked like a fresh lead. He froze where he stood. Nothing had ever made him feel like this before, and it caused him to fight a mental battle against an aura of pervasive wrongness.

One he wasn't sure he could ever hope to win.

"Coye, what's up? Why did you... just... stop...?" Shayla trailed off as the same sensation reached out to her, too. "What the fuck?!" She exclaimed in a panic.

Something was approaching from deeper in the dark forest. It was chilling, cold to the bone, and it was wrong. Whatever it was, it gave off a feeling that it shouldn't have ever been, like its entire existence was a cosmic joke without a punchline.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Coye did the first thing he could think of and scanned the perimeter for the safest place to hide. He found a dead and long-since toppled tree whose trunk had partially rotted, creating a broad, hollowed-out space wide enough for someone his size to fit within. Without a second thought, he dashed inside and crouched down, then pulled his hunting knife out to carve a small viewing hole so he could monitor the situation.

What shambled forward was every bit an affront to existence as its aura led Coye to believe it would be. It creeped out of the forest depths where the light was a luxury and not a guarantee, yet the area around it seemed somehow duller still. A mist of blacker than black coated it as it walked. The world itself flickered with every step.

It grew close enough for the two to get a clear look at it, although Coye and Shayla wished dearly that they didn't.

This unknown creature had a vaguely human shape, but its entire self was made of mossy green veins in the form of a nervous system wrapped around an invisible body. These veins pulsated and burned with a strange, cerulean glow, brightening the black mist as a beacon. All veins congregated where the monster's neck should have been, and from there, they spiraled and coiled out into the sky in every which way. Each one connected to one of the hundreds and hundreds of otherworldly eyeballs that followed the unknown thing as it walked, trailing like a thick cluster of clouds in its wake.

Clutched in one of its hands was the corpse of a monster Coye recognized all too well. It was dragging along the body of a defeated Ghastcrawler, a bizarre, tentacled, mollusc-human mashup that lived in parts of the forest so dark and ancient that few men had ever seen them and survived to tell the tale.

Coye was counted among those unlucky few.

Early on in his career, there was an incident where he lost his bearings and was swallowed up by the winding trails and maze-like paths of the Gnarled Woods. He wandered for hours trying to get home, only to attract the attention of a horrific, oozing monstrosity that attacked and chased him without end. It lashed against him, the acid from its tentacles withering his clothes, burning his skin and rending his armor to pieces. He was almost killing him many times over. Coye escaped that day, but it could have gone either way, and he never forgot the encounter.

And now he found himself in a situation where he was staring down something so terrifyingly powerful that it had brought down the strongest monster he’d ever faced without so much as a scratch.

"What... in the hell is that thing...?!" Shayla whispered. "I've never seen anything like that my whole damn life!"

"I-I don't know... I was hoping you would..." Coye observed as calmly as he could, but panic overtook his senses no matter how he struggled to keep that from happening. His hardened instincts screamed that if this malevolent mystery caught sight of him with even so much as one of its eyes, then he would never return home, and that would be that.

He started racking his brain for any explanation, sorting through all the monster facts and trivia that Miss Whittle had imparted to him over the last two years. Nothing came to mind. This thing was almost beyond classification, and it didn't look as if it belonged anywhere in the entire Realm, let alone here.

"Wait..." Coye thought aloud as one of his memories at last stuck out. How could he have forgotten something so bizarre? Perhaps he filed it away as something that would never happen, or his scatterbrain self just forgot about it entirely, but there was one time when the Guild Mistress ranted about a rarely seen family of creatures.

Aberrations, she called them.

Creatures of strangeness and horror that originated from another plane of existence, whatever that meant. The description flew over Coye's head at the time, but now it all made sense. There was no way these things came from Karnalle. Dorothy said they came in any shape and size, so long as those shapes were unknowable and that reality itself seemed to reject their very presence. Sightings of them were so rare that Aberrations were believed to be nothing more than tall tales for ages until an organization of Mages made some breakthroughs and proved their existence.

The Gnarled Woods was one of only a few places in all of Karnalle where Aberrations had been reported more than a handful of times. The chances of running into one were infinitesimally small but never zero. Coye sighed, lamenting the astronomical heap of bad luck that fate placed on his path.

"Do you know something or what?" Shayla asked, panicking so hard that her overactive wings were on the verge of giving out.

"Just remembering something Miss Whittle said," he shook his head and then grabbed Shayla, pulling her to his tunic and holding her in a pseudo hug. "We'll be just fine if we wait it out. Keep quiet."

He was lying, but Shayla appreciated it.

She couldn't stand to look at the thing much longer, anyway. It sapped her mental energy just thinking about the vile abomination, so she clutched onto Coye's tunic and nuzzled into it for comfort. Shayla cursed her own powerlessness as she did, wishing her magic was strong enough to get them out of this tight spot.

Coye used every trick in the book to conceal his presence. He slowed his pulse, breathed as little as he could get away with, and didn't make so much of a sound. He naively hoped for the best while smartly preparing for the worst.

Minutes passed, or maybe hours, as the Aberration inched closer down the forest trail until it was only a stone's throw away, the many legs of the dead Ghastcrawler trailing behind it. Sweat poured down Coye's brow. Shayla trembled. The end was nearer than it had ever been, and there were only two ways it could go from here. Life or death.

Then, every part of the monster- from the black vapor it wallowed amid to the sea of eyeballs trailing from its neck- froze.

It had to have seen them... that means it would be death, then.

Shame.

Coye gritted his teeth. He understood that running wasn't an option. It never was, not since they first felt the presence. Maybe even before. He didn't care about himself, but there had to be something he could do to save Shayla. Perhaps if he used all of his strength to throw her into the sky and then ran at the monster to sacrifice himself as a distraction? That might work, assuming it didn't kill them both the second he stepped out of cover.

Coye resolved to make it happen as soon as the right moment arrived, not knowing that Shayla was also summoning the courage to try and sacrifice herself so that he could get away.

Neither of them got the chance to be a hero.

Motion resumed.

The monstrosity's eyes smoldered with the vigorous multicolor of dreams, shaking, twitching, and searching in all directions. It stepped forward, raised a hand of pulsing green veins, and a circular rift in the world formed out of the aether. Ripples upon ripples undulated outward, distorting the fabric of reality as energy from the portal drifted into Karnalle.

Then, the Aberration stepped into the rift and vanished to parts unknown with its prize still held tight. The gateway closed behind it. The otherworldly horror was gone, replaced by the worldly horror of the Gnarled Woods that Coye was much more accustomed to.

He sunk to the ground and exhaled his soul out of his mouth, loosening his grip on Shayla.

"Coye?!" Shayla wiggled out and took to the sky but soon saw and sensed the relief running through him, knowing the monster to be gone without needing to check. "What the hell just happened...?"

"No idea, but it's gone..."

"Do you think it's coming back?"

Coye shrugged. "Let's hope not. Miss Whittle told me about whatever that thing was, though... she made it sound like they almost never show up in our Realm. Maybe it got bored and went home?"

"Love the optimism, but knowing our luck, that'd be a bit too convenient," Shayla sighed and hunched over in the air. "Where do you think a thing like that even calls home...?"

He tried to imagine it, but it only brought about a sense of dread he could do well without. "I don't think I want to know," he said, laughing softly to hide his stress. Shayla joined him and added in a few awkward chuckles of her own.

Somehow, they scraped by...

It was unwise to linger in any one spot for too long in the woods, but Coye couldn't bring himself to rise just yet. He'd witnessed a sight far worse than whatever this forest could throw at him, and he needed to recover mentally from the encounter with the help of a quick breather.

Shayla said nothing as Coye relaxed and regained himself. She needed the break just as much as he did. Thus, the two sat in the hollowed-out tree together for a few minutes, simply admiring the beautiful truth that was the fact that they were both still alive.

What a swell thing that was.

Once he was ready to go, Coye stood up without a word. His fear was gone, replaced with his typical single-minded determination. So significant was the difference between then and now that it was like nothing had ever happened. Shayla thought it odd and wondered if that monster inflicted permanent brain damage on her partner.

"Are we really just going back to hunting weasels after... whatever the hell all that was?" Shayla asked, finding herself unable to believe how quick Coye had compartmentalized the trauma. She was a little jealous.

"If I called it quits every time I saw a scary monster beyond my comprehension, I would've given up a long time ago..." Coye shrugged. The monster they were unlucky enough to have run into was, by his own admission, just about the most frightening thing he'd ever come across, but it was gone now. Simple as that.

"You just boggle the mind sometimes, you know that, baby?" Shayla groaned, less than thrilled that they'd really just keep going on despite this setback. "I bet we've already lost by now, anyway..."

The thought brought a frown to his face, but he wouldn't let that sway him.

"Maybe so, but..." Coye tightened his fist, his mind packed with nothing but thoughts of Byng. Perhaps he was focusing on her so hard to avoid ruminating on their recent encounter, but it mattered little. She inspired him as he asked, "I can't back down when she's expecting me to do my best, can I?"

Shayla wanted nothing more than to tell him yes, he could indeed back down, but she didn't. She had herself a long and drawn-out sigh before taking her seat back on his pauldron.

"No... you can't," she relented. "C'mon, lover boy."

Coye smiled at his partner's blessing, as tenuous as it was, and began the search again. They turned out luckier than they both expected. It didn't take long to find what he was looking for, and then some. He hunched over and stared into the dirt, confirming what he saw. There wasn't just one set of fresh tracks. There were so many overlapping that he couldn't even count them all.

While remaining vigilant for signs of otherworldly and ordinary threats alike, Coye followed the tracks. The sounds of Reaver Weasels going at it filled the air again long before Coye could lay eyes on them. It was different from their earlier encounter, though. This wasn't a pair of lovers. There were far too many screeching weasels making noise for that to be the case.

The duo happened to stumble upon an orgy.

Eight or nine weasels were locked in a heated embrace, squirming and writhing in a pile of churning ecstasy, their needled-filled tails wagging through the air. Coye was speechless as he found a large boulder to hide behind and stationed himself there, observing the situation without the risk of being noticed. Staring at the beasts for too long was difficult. Even just watching the two weasels from before going at it was embarrassing enough, so this was something else entirely for the boy.

"What's the matter?" Shayla teased. "Are you gonna get hung up on watching a bunch of wild animals fucking again? I would've thought that after what we just lived through, it'd come as less of a shock..."

"I'm fine," he shook his head and grumbled. "I was just trying to think of a way we could round them up all at once since I don't want to risk any of them getting away if we can help it. I think there are enough weasels in... um... the pile... for us to finish the first round of the Zurgarrah."

"Yeah, looks like it..." Shayla held her chin and started thinking of potential plans. "Do you have anything in your belt that could help us out?"

"No..." Coye replied and went into thought, too. "If we had a really strong net, then it might be easy to catch them and kill all of the weasels at the same time, but... that's about all I can come up with..."

"So, you're saying we don't have a net, right? Because in that case, all we have to do is make one!" Shayla suggested, puffing her chest out in pride over her own idea. It was a simple idea, but she would celebrate nonetheless.

That sounded easier said than done to Coye. He couldn't even sew his own clothes up after battles, so he considered himself anything but a weaver. Beyond that, Coye carried a rope with him in his bag because you never know when such a thing might come in handy, but it wouldn't be big enough to make an entire net. Still. Given that he had no other ideas at the moment, Coye saw no reason not to see whatever it was that Shayla had in mind.

"What do you want me to do?" Coye asked, allowing the Pixie the floor to prove herself.

Shayla smirked and then looked around the immediate area, sizing up what she had to work with. There were bushes full of questionable berries, no small amount of bramble, and most importantly, vines as thick as cords were growing along the dark and violent trees that towered all around them.

Oh, yeah. That'd do it.

"I am so glad you asked!" Shayla said, then pointed off to a nearby tree branch. "Cut down a bunch of vines for me, please?"

"You got it," Coye said. He required no further explanation, implicitly trusting Shayla to know what was best.

Under his partner's supervision, Ciye gathered loads of vines. He cut each down with his hunting knife and collected them in a growing pile on the ground, all while ensuring his work was silent enough that he wouldn't be noticed by the monsters on the off chance one looked up from its festivities.

Shayla stopped him once she figured they had enough vines. With magic, she manipulated them one by one, threading the plant matter together in an intricate weave that started to resemble the end product of a handy net over time. She'd never actually made a net before, but it was close enough to messing with the threads of clothing that it came naturally to her.

Several minutes of weaving later, Shayla was finished.

"Whew," she exclaimed, wiping a bead of sweat from her brow as her glowing eyes sparkled with self-satisfaction. "What do you think, baby? Am I good, or am I good?"

"Let's find out," Coye said, picking up the finished product and inspecting it in greater detail. He gave it a significant tug, putting it under stress. The bet wouldn't snap using his base strength, and there were very few gaps for the weasels to wiggle out of. Overall, it exceeded his expectations.

"Looks like it'll do the job. Nice work." He gave the Pixie a casual thumbs up, causing Shayla to become full of herself, brimming with confidence and growing drunk on his praise.

"Of course! Would you expect anything less from me?" Shayla asked rhetorically.

"Nope," Coye allowed Shayla to bask in her minor accomplishment for another moment before bringing up the next task at hand. "Now we just need to figure out how we're gonna throw it. We don't have anything to weigh down the corners, so..."

"Oh, I can handle that, too! I'll drop the net on them from above and wrap it around them!"

"Won't that use a lot of mana?" Coye asked, assuming that Shayla would need to use a lot of resources to keep all those monsters from pushing against their confinement.

"Nah, I got a quick way to kill all of them at once that I think you'll approve of..." Shayla smiled as she rubbed her hands together, after which Coye nodded.

"Alright, I'll leave it to you..." he said, but his gaze was elsewhere.

"What? Something wrong?"

"N-No, just..."

"Out with it."

"Fine. There's... um... just one little thing I'm worried about... you said you wanted to throw the net on the weasels from above? Like, up in the treetops?"

"Yeah?" Shayla tilted her head and rested her hands on her hips. "So what?"

Coye looked away and scratched his head. "N-Nothing... just, um... what would happen if a hungry bird saw you or something? Would you be ok?"

"Oh, come on! I'm not that vulnerable, you know!" She declared in a flustered tizzy, taking the net with her into the sky as she flew away into the mess of thick branches and even thicker leaves. "A hungry bird? Pft. I'll show you... just you watch me!"

"Sorry..." he sighed, though his concerns felt justified considering the danger they managed to escape from. Either way, Coye relented since there was no chance Shayla would take no for an answer.

Once she reached the correct position, Shayla sprawled out the net wide open over the Reaver Weasel orgy and let it loose from on high. She sped up the fall with telekinesis so that it came upon them faster than they could react- a myriad of wild screeches echoing into the forest from within the confines.

Next, she maneuvered the four corners and flipped the net over. In a manner of seconds, Shayla tied the net together nice and tight as could be. Dozens of needles shot out of the net in just as many directions, but none of them could loosen the thick cords in any significant way.

Coye was waiting for the right moment to come in and strike the killing blow on the bag of weasels but stayed his hand unless Shayla spoke. She claimed to have a plan, so all he could do was trust her for the moment. Soon, the net rose higher and higher, disappearing into the canopy just as Shayla did until Coye could no longer see it. Just how high it ended, Coye was unsure, but it came crashing down all the same.

The result was brutal and efficient.

A cacophony of wet, cracking noises and dying screeches exploded from the net as it smashed against the solid ground. The only movement came in the form of minor twitches wiggling the net that soon crawled to a complete halt. Definitely not the way Coye would've done it, but placing his trust in his partner got the job done, which was all that mattered.

"You got them all!" Coye called out to Shayla as he approached the net with his hunting knife, poking it a few times to ensure no survivors. He waited for Shayla to descend, but time continued to roll on without her until he became anxious over her absence.

"Shayla...?" He called out to her, his pointy ears twitching to pick up anything he could.

Shayla didn't answer him, but a raven did. It cawed loud enough to spread across the area, its black wings rustling the leaves as it dived from above. Then, the Pixie burst out of the canopy screaming, "Shit, shit, shiiiit!" at the top of her tiny lungs as the bird chased in hot pursuit of her.

Coye sighed, rearing his arm and unleashing his knife with a well-timed throw. The raven squawked and then was silent as it nosedived out of the sky, an explosion of red blood and black feathers trailing after it in its descent.

Looking over her shoulder, Shayla saw the sudden lack of a threat. Then, she looked down at Coye and balled her fists. Her cheeks flushed as she continued to flutter down and rejoin him.

As soon as they were face to face, Shayla turned away and grumbled, "Don't say it."

"I-I wasn't going to," Coye scratched his head, then knelt down to retrieve his hunting knife, wiping it clean and stuffing the raven into his bag. It wasn't in his nature to say 'I told you so,' but he did experience a somewhat smug feeling on the inside that was quite unbecoming.

"Anyway, you did a good job. I hope lifting the bag up that high didn't wear you out too much or anything, though..." he said, offering Shayla a graceful out that she took without a shred of shame.

"Yeah, about that... after I let go, all that mana drain left me winded for a few seconds! That's all it took for that damned brute to come cawing all up in my business. Otherwise, I would've... well... you know..." Shayla dismissively waved her hand and gave up. "Anyway, you got enough weasels now to impress your green gal pal, or what?"

Rather than arguing over whether Byng was or was not his 'gal pal,' Coye instead cut open the net and counted them out. His estimation proved wrong. Ten Reaver Weasels were actually engaged in this group humping and pumping session, leaving him with two more than he needed.

"And then some," he smiled, beginning to pick the monsters up by the neck and stash them away.

"Good. You can thank me later." Shayla said, still in a somewhat huffy mood.

"Or I can thank you now," Coye threw out nonchalantly. "Thanks, Shayla."

Shayla looked back at him with his innocent smile and that adorable face of his. She sighed and rolled her eyes, softening up like warm butter just as she always did for him. "You think you're so cute, don't you? Well, too bad, baby, but you're holding a dead rat with a boner. Even you can't pull that look off."

Coye looked at the dead weasel in question, blushed, and shoved it into the Bag of Holding. Shayla lit up in response, feeling much better after seeing him get all flustered.

"That's more like it!" She laughed. "You ready to go, then?"

"Yup, not much reason to stand around here any longer than we have to..."

"You said it. C'mon, then. Let's go show Byng what you got!"