Wick dropped by the morning of the Oldtown Cascadia Neighborhood Association meeting, bringing with her with a bag containing a few very welcome breakfast sandwiches from a greasy diner over by the stacks. “Hey, you guys finishing a shift?” She had buzzed to announce she was coming in and Corvayne came out to the catwalk to see her shaking her umbrella off. Grunt came out of the office, nodded, then looked at the bag and wiggled his fingers. She laughed and tossed him a wax wrapped lump that filled the air with the smell of cheese and sausage. She handed Corvayne his sandwich once he was down on the ground floor. He noted that her fingernails were painted the same weird green as her hair. “Hi Wick. Great to see you.”

“Yeah Corvayne right? I know this is dinner for you, I figure I'd butter you two up so you'll come to the meeting and maybe help me afterwards with a little project...”

Grunt held up one finger holding his sandwich, the other a thumbs up, but then frowned and held a second finger up then turned his other thumb down. He took a step with a leg tied to an imaginary weight forcing him to drag the foot: I can come to the meeting, but can't do anything else after that tonight. Girlfriend.

“Oh right. Is Dawn coming too?”

He laughed and made a catty fingers held out then flipped down motion: C'mon Wick. Of course she is.

Wick smiled then turned to Corvayne “How about it there, wanna make a little extra money as a bodyguard?”

Grunt leaned in and looked both ways, then raised his eyebrows twice with a smirk: You trust this guy already?

“Hahah, you vouched for him.” Corvayne looked to Grunt. Bro! Wick looked at Corvayne, eyes a little wide and crazy but enthusiastic.

“Don't worry, you'll hear ALL about it at the meeting! You probably won't need to lift a finger, just go on a little hike with me!”

“Oh of course, I mean, you don't need to pay me at all, I still owe you for helping me find work and a place to stay.” Even if she had mostly just foisted him on Grunt, she had made the decision to do so.

Wick laughed “Come on, you sure?”

Corvayne had fought countless strong warriors. One thing that they all had was a sense of when to go on the attack to score a decisive hit. He felt what that must be like: that lightning momentum pushing him forward to take advantage of an opening. “I'll do it if afterwords you buy me dinner.”

“Oh it's going to be late, but sure. Why not? I'm a night owl too; I'm actually about to go to bed as well.” This prompted him to suddenly wonder if she had pajamas or slept in her underclothes. It was amazing what removing non-stop dread from his life did for letting him entertain new intrusive thoughts.

The morning guards, a scrawny guy with an eye-patch and a woman with a lot of piercings were coming in. “Hey Wick, meeting tonight?” The woman punched in while talking. Corvayne punched out, with Grunt gesturing for the man to go ahead and punch in as well. He smiled and tapped his wrist then his head: Grunt here's getting that extra cheddar

The guy laughed “Milkin' it Grunt. Mil-kin-IT.”

Grunt tapped his head, rubbed his fingers with his thumb, stopped for a moment, then rubbed his fingers with his thumb and tapped his head: Got my mind on my money and my money on my mind.

The guy laughed at Grunt then nodded to wick as his laughing wound down. “Can't wait to hear what you got for us tonight Wick.”

Corvayne suddenly felt a little fear: was she that popular?

Wick helped dispel some of his worry. “Yeah! It's good. I've got more people to bug... and Corvayne, you had better be ready to be up all night!” She gave him a playful punch, then spun and walked out. The eye patch guy was looking at him with something like awe.

A solid 8 hours of sleep later, Corvayne was walking with Grunt down Copper Mill Avenue to the Old Town Community Center. The gloomy morning had turned to a gloomy afternoon, with dark clouds pouring rain. Only a few lights were on in either apartment tower flanking the community center. Despite both buildings looking imposing and possibly haunted, people with a variety of colorful umbrellas and tarps were streaming into the double glass doors between them. Grunt took a rain coat and he wore his cloak: it was waterproof and far more comfortable. It also had changed colors to match the grays and browns and blues of Old Town. Given that he might need to bodyguard, he had of course taken his spear and pack with him.

The interior of the community center was faux wood paneling, floor tiles yellowed by age, and some cheap looking sound absorbing material in a grid above. The center actually was called Saint's Retreat because it had a small monastery attached to it. Corvanye could see there was a hallway out to a little garden courtyard and there was even a simply red robed avuncular monk coming down said hall. Grunt waved, and the monk waved back. “Ah Mister Grunt. Did you need me to take over the vow of silence?” Grunt smirked then made a lips zipped motion. The monk clapped. “Good good! If you get hurt, you know to come by. Hospitals are too expensive these days. And I'd get rusty! Oh how rude, is this young fellow your friend?”

Grunt nodded at the monk, who turned his gaze (or attention, he looked like he had his eyes closed) over to Corvayne. “A pleasure to meet you. I'm the lone Monk of this monastery. My name is Icariii, but everyone calls me Mister I.”

“Corvayne.” He offered his hand, and the monk shook it vigorously.

“Corvayne, ah interesting name. Never heard it before. Did your parents have a reason for it?”

The monk was trying to be friendly and didn't directly say that it was a stupid name, so Corvayne did his best not to dock the man points before he really knew him. “My dad hated me.”

“That's too bad. If you need counseling, my door is open. I am a man dedicated to healing, helping, and hearing. That's for people, watch out if your a fish!” He laughed and made a reeling motion, and Grunt did as well. That's when someone got the drop on Grunt. Corvayne was worried for a moment as he never had seen the big man startled and he had jumped as arms wrapped around him. Corvayne already was reaching for his spear when a tall woman with black lipstick and a lot of cleavage hanging out of her spiderweb dress planted a big kiss on Grunt's cheek.

“Hey big lug. I got the flowers. You think that crap works on me? Well guess what: it does.”

Grunt turned and leaned in for a kiss, to which she stuffed a hand in his face. “Yeah right, not with your friend gawking.” Her eyes, a vivid green, narrowed as she stared at him, and Corvayne actually felt his danger sense tingling as if he had just ran into a huge monster in the desert despite the woman only reaching up to his chin. “Hey kid... do I know you?”

Corvayne had to think how to handle this. He didn't think she was a villager. But there was never an easy way to tell. Was she a merchant?

She eyed him up and down and said dryly “You look like you work out a lot. Did you work for me?”

Corvayne smiled, her compliment confirming it. “Sorry, I'm sure we've never met. My name is Corvayne.”

“Dawn-after-Night.”

He had never heard that name before but it sounded like the names you found in his village. “Hmm... you ever meet the Watchers? A village out in the desert?”

“No. I do run a lot of businesses here in town...” Every other word she spoke didn't have the exacting and clear enunciation of business, which was loaded with the kind of emphasis that Corvayne could have picked up with about an hour of television, let alone the hours and hours he had spent watching since arriving at Cascadia. She stepped back and looked him up and down. “You a cultist or something?”

“I don't think so and even if they had been one, I got kicked out before they fed me to a giant snake or whatever cults do. I only asked as your name reminded me of them.”

Grunt stepped between them. Corvayne looked him in the eyes and placed his hands on Grunt's shoulders, patting them once: Bro it's ok. Grunt sighed and relaxed, then stepped aside: Thanks for understanding Corvayne and not getting upset that I got a little jealous.

“Ok you two, get a fuckin' room. Not really, Grunt take my arm stupid! Treat me like a lady. And you, Corvy, I see that spear. Grunt, you and him should drop the warehouse gig and come work for me. I pay better.”

Grunt lined up his free hand with the one that was restrained by Dawn's arm, as if drawing a bow. He then drew a line, then gestured at himself: I'm going to stay as straight as an arrow.

Dawn rolled her eyes. “Pfft. I know you damn baby. C'mon, lets get seats.”

Corvayne followed them down the hall to a meeting room stuffed with plastic chairs with a little stage and podium. He was pretty shocked to see that the hundred seats were mostly full. Grunt went up to a seat near the front and displaced three people by looking each of them in the eye then clearing his throat. Corvayne was impressed that all three understood his request for his friends to sit up front. He sat between Corvayne and Dawn, perhaps still feeling slightly worried about his girlfriend acting on a fancy. Corvayne was thankful: Dawn radiated trouble.

The meeting started with a man wearing workout clothes jogging in from the side. His pristine white sneakers and bright blue-black outfit clashed with the more faded colors everyone else was wearing. He brought with him the scent of aftershave.

“Hey guys! Alderman Brines here. I know a lot of you rent from me, good to see you all! I don't have anything from the city council, we are still working on getting funding for potholes out here and we are looking into all the graffiti at the train stops. And hey, if any house owners here are looking to sell, you can see me after miss Wick does her usual thing.”

Dawn raised her hand, and Brines pointed. “Miss After-Night, Question?”

“Yeah Jimmy. Did they ever get a formal response put together for you about us forming a separate township out here?”

“I asked, there's a lot of fuss from transit saying they are still struggling with the budget they spent on new stations 10 years ago. Also, City Planning objected, saying they want the water processing plant to remain in city limits. You know how much fun City Planning is to deal with.” His smile got a little forced at the end.

Dawn muttered to herself. “Those fucks never are around when I am.”

“My dad spoke to the mayor last month, as I said, and I've been advocating for you guys to have more say about where the money here goes.”

Brines gave a wincing smile as Dawn glared at him, but the woman sat back and waved dismissively. “I know Jimmy, I know. Your our blue-blood.”

“Uh, I don't think that has anything to... we can talk about it later, from the many angry looks I see that you guys are here to hear Wick!”

Corvayne looked around as a bunch of people burst out with agreement. Brines got off stage and Wick came on, dragging from the side of the backstage a chalk board and a bunch of posters. She was wearing her usual olive pants and jacket. She went up to the podium and pulled the microphone off it.

“Ok everyone, let's have some REAL talk now that the government is done telling you LIES!”

Brines was off to the side and just smiled and waved.

Wick started pacing. “So last time we were talking about the REAL problem in and around Cascadia. No one wants to admit it but... folks? We got a problem. A BIG problem...”

She leaned in, mic held in hand, looking at the crowd. He leaned forward in his seat.

“A BIGFOOT problem. That's right... over the last week loggers, campers, hikers, and bikers all reported one BIG stinking APE has been stalking the good people of Cascadia Colonial Park!”

She unrolled a blown up photo of a black furry blur 50 yards down a bike path from whoever took the photo. It was behind some bushes. In the rain. Corvayne looked around. Why were people smiling? It was an 8 foot tall humanoid monster. Did they not have any idea what happens if a tribe of monsters learns tool making? Decided to storm their walls? Wait, the city didn't even have walls! He himself walked right in!

“For the last week too, the Logging camp at Delta Valley had been reporting missing objects, petty theft, and someone sabotaging their machines. Now there's reports of people missing. The beast knows the woods are HIS and wants US out.”

“What about aliens Wick?” A man with a green flying saucer t-shirt in the back called out.

“Of COURSE. We know Cascadia is, via paranormal investigation, a dimensional weak segment of the universe. Outsiders, strange lights, creatures that don't fit in, people stepping into realities next to but not our own, missing time... they all come crawling into our little slice of The Collective, and many of them are EXTREMELY dangerous if they are not handled by professionals. Like me. And it's very possible that these hairy monsters are aliens, using tech beyond our understanding to slip into our universe and do who knows what. It's why we started the relic investigation foundation.”

“Do you think they are mutilating the Cattle that you talked about a month ago?” Someone else asked. Corvanyne now had rapt attention: disrupting the food supply was a classic tactic to presage a siege. The entire town could be in danger! Why were people laughing? Wick smiled.

“No. That's silly. Ape Cryptids don't like open spaces that much. Getting out to a pasture to hunt a cow doesn't fit with what we looked at last month. Unless... THEY were driving the black helicopters!”

“Do you think they are worried about Old Town becoming it's own city because of a secret underground base?” Dawn offered, raising her hand but, like everyone else, not bothering to wait for Wick to call her. Wick only smiled.

“That's off topic, but the answer is obviously yes, duh! Next question?”

“Wick, is there a difference between a skunk-ape and a bigfoot? Also, do they like humans?”

“No difference besides skunk-ape being funnier to say. The term sasquatch really means all of those. As for the second part: There are some folk traditions that 'wild men' and 'women of the woods' have some interest in humans of the opposite sex. Given the smell: Not going to test that one!”

She started going into details about historical sightings both on the Collective's Homeworld, old photos and eventually videos on the chalk board after she wiped the chalk off: it turned out to be a screen as well. The videos occasionally made the crowd laugh. Some of the videos were people talking about encounters. It seemed that the beasts left a little bit of physical evidence, and had some curiosity towards human civilization. There were also people who talked about why the creatures couldn't exist in a place due to population size requirements, the expected food needed to support a large biped primate, the overall chance of a large unknown creature avoiding most contact without being captured by directed attempts... a whole bunch of reasons that monsters couldn't exist. All these video clips of skeptical presenters were boo'ed by the crowd there. Then a few clips of a researcher explaining that if you removed people from the equation these places would be perfect for supporting hunter-gatherers. That maybe it was more something like ghosts: echos of a society or individuals that lived before modern influence. Wick tapped into some cadence of speaking that kept everyone at rapt attention until she got to the last image comparing a big foot to a picture of a triangle of lights in the sky.

“So anyway, I'm going to go on a fact-finding mission tonight! I hope to capture proof of the beast, possibly the monster itself! We're going to lure the beast out and try to get a new gold standard video!”

With that the meeting was wrapping up, with Wick recommending books for people to read on the subject. All of them had names like 'Out of Myth: The TRUTH about Bigfoot' or 'Code Sasquatch: Conserving the Paranormal' or 'Universe of Cryptids: Bringing Our Ghosts With Us'. He wished he could read them before coming with Wick: he got the sense that she wanted him to follow her out into the woods at night looking for a large monster and he had never hunted something in a forest before. Well, there was that one time he chased a white-horn hare into the petrified forest. That probably didn't count. As Wick walked off the back of the stage he stood up and walked to a side door that looked like it lead to the back room. Dawn tapped him on the shoulder before he got too far.

“Hey, Grunt told me your going to keep an eye on her tonight.” Dawn's black lips were put together in a frown.

“She didn't say as much but yeah I guess I'm going to do some body guard duty.” Corvayne had a moment where he was dragged back to the village, doing drills where he had to protect someone while moving from one gate in the wall to the oasis and back. Spears-Like-Water seemed to enjoy that torment: she walked at half the speed while acting as his escort, and kept making him jump in front of attacks or pick her up to move her out of the way.

Dawn frowned a little. “I guess Grunt and her agree, which is weird. She's usually very wary of people she doesn't know. I don't know what shit happened in her life, but she is HAPPY here. The town loves her. I love her. I want her up on that stage as long as she'll have us to take us away from this garbage city. So, if you let anything happen to her or do anything to her, I will find out and I will use my carrot peeler to skin your balls.”

Corvayne felt his sweat freeze. She was serious and something told him that all the training in the world wouldn't help him escape. She had the same aura as the masters of the village. Maybe stronger. “I will keep Wick safe. Please continue to use your peeler on carrots and only carrots.”

Dawn's glower became a smile and the aura faded. She playfully slapped his arm “Of course. I have two peelers, silly.”

A minute later Corvayne found Wick talking to Mister I who spun and gestured for Corvayne to come closer. Corvayne raised an eyebrow: the simple looking man had sharp ears to hear him from 20 feet away given murmuring of the crowd in the hall. “Good good, I love seeing you kids going on adventures! Reminds me of when I was young ahahah.”

“Need a rain coat? Or a flashlight?” Wick herself had a monster of a flashlight, the kind that probably was meant to be mounted on a car. Corvayne flipped the hood of his cloak up. “All good on the coat. Need a light though.”

She turned and pulled one out of a large backpack, then flipped it to him handle first. Much much smaller. He frowned. Wouldn't he need a big one too? He put it into his own pack.

With that Mister I pushed open the doors out to the garden courtyard and walked them through the rain to a pair of double doors that lead into a large garage with a few tarps over partially dismantled vehicles and a beat up pickup truck. Mister I had to unlock the door and push it open as Wick opened the back door for Corvayne to slide into the car. The cracked vinyl seat was comfy, and the garage reminded him of Spaces-Torn-Asunder's workshop. Perhaps the one sad point in his exile was not getting to tinker around in the garage. Well, he was thinking of staying in Cascadia for a while, perhaps Icariii wouldn't mind him helping rebuild some of the obvious works in progress.

Given that the door was manually opened and closed, Icariii drove them out into the rain then hopped out to close the door, then got them rolling out of town. Old Town's roads were at their widest four lanes until the freeway, but most of the cars emptied out at night. It was dusk and only lightly raining giving Corvayne a little better perspective on the lay of the land. He had seen a topographic map and was pretty sure he knew where he had come from a week ago. The old truck had an little floaty ball compass that helped him also orient. The island of Old Town was sort of wedged in the middle city's island chain. On the map it looked a little like a key ring with thin islands fanning out, strung along a deep channel between the mainland and Barrier Ridge island. Getting onto the freeway he could look out and see the passage out to open ocean at the south tip of Barrier Ridge, the name given because it formed a black rocky rise across the bay. The truck took a gentle turn on the raised expressway, pulling the north side of Old Town into view. Twisting train tracks at all sorts of elevations were coming into line to also enter a building the road tunneled through.

“This's the old central station.” Icariii spoke. While looking out the other window he saw Wick had her glasses off and was watching lights stream by. Corvayne could see from her reflection as they passed lights the bags under her eyes. After a glimpse of a neglected looking atrium inside of the train station, a sign announced they were crossing over to Ko'Ban which looked to be a slightly less industrial slum, neon lights thrumming alive over narrow roads and sidewalks full of people. Mixed in with packed older buildings with odd additions were hints of when the neighborhood was nicer: more ornate buildings with carved stone men holding sections up, lions standing aside doors, and wrought iron lights, all now covered in a layer of graffiti 10 feet tall. Over the neon lights Corvayne could spot what looked like more warehouses and cranes and ships. The road split here, with the highway going further north to two more islands: one that was split from Ko'ban by a smaller straight that seemed to be full of houses and apartments, then one further in the distance, a mist shrouded island with lights that suggested it was a single large hill. His map called it Dolphin Island. He swore that he saw a huge black tower there for a moment, but a train going the other way blocked his view. When he looked back, he couldn't see where on the island he had been looking. With the increasing rain graying everything out, Corvayne had to sort of guess what he was looking at anyway.

The water and sky was turning from gray to black as they drove across the bay, one train racing along with the car for most of the ride. Their route took them to into the glimmering mass of lights that was the main peninsula of the city. From the elevated freeway, Corvayne could enjoy the buildings, and lights, and even see atop some of the shorter spaces as he would peer down concrete valleys full of cars and people all going over rivers that seemed to lace their way though the entire city. Then they were racing out of town as the ground rose to meet the freeway. They turned onto a leg veering north. The rate the city went from bright lights to countryside took longer then he remembered on his walk, and didn't cross the large bridge he had come into town on. The road was laid in a forest lined valley and the only hints of the city were signs with names like 'Ocean Drive' 'Pine Bay Ave.' and 'Fish Spawnery Road' marking bridges over the highway. He could see some homes as they drove over rivers, but more and more they were flanked by endless pine trees, only a few times broken by lit service stations, farms, and facilities that he didn't have the slightest clue as to what they did: just sudden places where red warning lights on giant drums and exhaust stacks would break the pine on either side of the road. It was sort of relaxing, even after Wick started futzing with a music player on her phone and put on rock and roll.

The drive ended up being nearly two hours total. Corvayne knew they were getting close as they started going down progressively smaller roads. The final turn ended in a gravel parking lot. With headlights blaring into a strand of trees with rain hitting the windshield in fat drops, Corvayne suddenly had insight into why people in stories didn't want to go into the dark woods at night. Wick hopped right out, perhaps marshaling her fear or just completely ignoring the dangers of hunting large beasts. Then Corvayne decided if she wasn't scared, he had nothing to worry about. It probably beat the heck out of the desert.

“What type of monsters live in these woods aside from Bigfeet?” he asked, trying to see if he could get his night vision to take. Sadly, with the high beams on and Wick's own insanely bright flashlight, it would be difficult to handle the contrast.

“Monsters? I guess Cascadian timber wolves? Does elk count? They got big horns!” Wick sort of laughed. “Cascadia has a few transplants and a few quasi mammals that are basically dogs and way far south you got a ten foot long salamanders that sometimes will try to bite people who get to close but no really interesting xenobiology here... aside from the Bigfoot!”

The monk rolled down the window and waved at them. “I'll be back in a few hours, I'm going to go fishing!” and sped off, leaving Corvayne along with Wick... and whatever else was in the woods. She started happily making her way down the trail and Corvayne put on a brave face and followed her into the dark.