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>>4506798

You can catch up on the story so far by reading the recap image here, or the previous threads in this link: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=Slasher%20Killer

Twitter: http://twitter.com/ravenkingquests
Discord: https://discord.gg/4p9mmau

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The fog is thick in the forest, lit only by the pale radiance of a thin crescent moon diffusing through the mist. An owl hoots, somewhere nearby, and you feel a kinship with your fellow predator.

The traps and snares are set. The effigies of bone and sinew, offerings to the Great Darkness, are in place. Your arrows are sharp, and your axe is honed. You will hunt well tonight.

On the boundary of your territory, an offering of shrike-bone has snapped: a warning sign that a danger is on the way. What could pose a danger to one such as you is unknown. But you have time to hunt, before it arrives, and there are outsiders in your woods, and your thirst is unquenched.

The once-abandoned cabin now radiates light and voice and music, all alien to these dark woods. Carefree youths shouting, dancing, playing. Enjoying life to the fullest, hearts beating wildly with vigor inside their chests. All ignorant of the grim fate you will work upon them soon. You wait, quiet as a shadow, still as a grave.

The rear door of the cabin creaks open,the music briefly getting louder, as one of the outsiders stumbles forth. A young man, clearly intoxicated from the way he weaves and staggers as he moves, crossing from the cabin to the edge of the woods. He begins to urinate against a tree, still humming and singing snatches of song. Ignorant of the danger that lurks nearby. The Fool, then, and he will be first. Let it be so.

The night-eyes of the beast-that-talks are weak, and you easily use the darkness of the trees to hide your shape from the young fool as you reposition yourself. Moving closer, ever closer. To amuse yourself, you intentionally step upon a brittle twig, causing a loud snap. The man's jolt of alarm causes his stream of piss to jerk erratically, and he curses as it befouls his hands, snatching up a leaf to wipe them off, his fear immediately forgotten. They are so foolish, sometimes, you think. Away from their guns and lights and machines, they become easy prey.

How will you dispatch the fool, and what will you do with what remains?
>Wound him, allow him to escape back to the cabin, to burden his companions.
>Butcher him and string up the remains in plain view, to terrify them.
>Take him away, silently, to leave them in ignorance and suspense.

>>4506829
>Wound him, allow him to escape back to the cabin, to burden his companions.

>>4506829
>>Wound him, allow him to escape back to the cabin, to burden his companions.

>>4506829
>Wound him, allow him to escape back to the cabin, to burden his companions.
Bequeath them time to regret their trespass.

>>4506829
>Butcher him and string up the remains in plain view, to terrify them.

>>4506829
>Wound him, allow him to escape back to the cabin, to burden his companions.

>>4506829
>>Butcher him and string up the remains in plain view, to terrify them.

>>4506829
>Wound him, allow him to escape back to the cabin, to burden his companions.

>>4506829
>>4506836
>>4506838
>>4506843
>>4506872
>>4506887


You will wound him, allow him to escape back to the cabin. There he will be a burden on his companions. Their compassion will force them to dress his wounds, to suffer his cries, all as their stress and tension rise.

There is no joy in your life, not anymore. But there is a satisfaction, a hunger being filled, when you sense their fear of you, and the scent is all the sweeter as it intensifies. Your anticipation grows.

You move closer to the fool, close enough that you could reach out and touch him. The mist parts for a moment, revealing the crescent moon, and your shadow falls across his face. Puzzled, he looks up, straight in your direction. At first he thinks he sees nothing but darkness, but his eyes wander upwards, seeing the stiff fur of your face, the silhouette of your antlers outlined against the mist.

"Oh, shit, it's a deer," he mumbles, laughing as he zips himself up. "Niiice deer -- wait, what ...?"

You raise your knife, allowing the sharpened blade to catch the silver of the moonlight. The fool begins to understand the true shape of what he is looking at, and his eyes go wide with terror. His mouth spits panicked, incomprehensible babbling. He stumbles away, falls over backwards into the soil of the forest floor. You slowly walk towards him as he scrambles on his hands and knees, trying to get back to his feet, but only falls over again. As he rises a second time, you lash out with your knife, slicing through flesh and tendon with a single clean stroke, and his frightened whimpers elevate into a shriek of pain and terror. Pausing to wipe the blood clean on your forearm, you slowly walk forward once more, forcing the fool to stagger and limp and crawl one-legged back to the cabin.

The door is thrown open, and the fool's companions help him inside, gasping at the blood on his thighs. You stop at the edge of the darkness, where the light fades away, nothing more than a dark shape nearly invisible in the shadows. You will stop, for the moment. Allow time for their fear to grow.

>>4506915

With ears as sharp as a wolf's, you listen to their frightened, chaotic discussions:

"It was a fucking *monster*, man," the wounded fool gasps. "It had *antlers* but it fucking stood *up* and -- and -- aaagh --!!"

"Hold still, Fred, will you?" says a stern-sounding man. "We're trying to help!"

One of the woman is panicking. "Eeeugh there's blood everywhere ohmygooood--"

"Natalie, keep yourself together," a sensible-sounding woman says. "We have to keep pressure on here or Fred's going to bleed out. The important thing right now is to get this wound taken care of. We can worry about what caused it later. Adam, go look in the living room. Nat, check the bathroom."

"Got it," the stern man says. "Come on, Nat, let's see if this place has a first aid kit or something."

"O-okay," the frightened woman says, barely getting herself under control.

The sound of their footsteps tell you as two of them isolate themselves within the cabin. What will you do? What comes next?

>Loose an arrow through a window, picking off one of them at range.
>Set a snare by a doorway, trap the first one to try to leave.
>Break inside, forcefully, and haul one of them off into the woods.
>Disable their vehicle -- the Darkness will prevent them from escaping, no matter what, but it will cause fear for them to *know* they cannot escape.
>Something else.

>>4506917
>Set a snare by a doorway, trap the first one to try to leave.

>>4506917
>>Disable their vehicle -- the Darkness will prevent them from escaping, no matter what, but it will cause fear for them to *know* they cannot escape.

Make noise while doing so- the shriek of rending metal will frighten them.

>>4506917
>Disable their vehicle -- the Darkness will prevent them from escaping, no matter what, but it will cause fear for them to *know* they cannot escape.
Let them dread what is to come.

>>4506917
>Set a snare by a doorway, trap the first one to try to leave.

>>4506917
>Disable their vehicle -- the Darkness will prevent them from escaping, no matter what, but it will cause fear for them to *know* they cannot escape

>>4506917
>Trap their automobile. Let their machine's destruction rend the flesh from the first to try to operate it.

>because sometimes split votes answer themselves

>>4506917
>>4506921
>>4506923
>>4506932


With the strength of iron, you rip off the truck's door and hood and toss them to the earth nearby. With your heavy hunter's axe, you shatter the fragile windows, then wreck the soft cables and tubes of the engine, severing them the sinews, and a viscous liquid drips to the soil like blood. With your sharp knife, you slash the black circles that serve as the thing's limbs. The thing is thoroughly destroyed, carved and gutted like a carcass.

The weak fools inside the cabin have surely been quailing at the sound of wrenching metal, and later will despair if they venture outside to see the results of your work, to know that their route to escape is cut off. You know, of course, that the Great Darkness will not let them leave, and these woods will close themselves to anyone trying to escape the hunt. But this makes it very clear to them. They are trapped, and will be hunted down until there are no survivors.

Melting away into the forest once more, you take some time to clean and re-sharpen your weapons. The sound of the axe against the whetstone brings some dim flicker of satisfaction to your cold heart, anticipating when it will soon cut into flesh and bone.

Prepared again, you once more approach the cabin, where you find two of the prey by the destroyed truck. One of them, a muscular male, is inspecting the damage you inflicted to the engine, while the other, a woman, nervously clutches a flashlight, shining it at random into the darkness.

The man grunts as he stands up and wipes oil from his hands. "Yeah, she's fucked. Unless there's a whole ton of spare parts and tools in the woodshed, there's no way we're driving out of here."

"But Adam, we have to get out!" The woman's voice quavers with fear. "We have to get out of these woods and get Fred to a hospital!"

"Look, Nat, I know you're scared about your boyfriend," Adam says. "But I want to help Fred as much as you. He's my best friend, remember? I'm not just going to let him bleed out in the woods like this. But we're not going anywhere in this truck. And if anyone heads off into those trees in the dark, it's more likely they'll fall into a ravine or something than find their way back to civilization. Our best bet is to keep trying the radio, and wait until dawn."

"What about the monster?" Nat points the flashlight into the woods. It just so happens to be right where you stand, about fifty paces away. But you are one with the forest, blending seamlessly into the foliage. She doesn't even see you, despite looking right at you, and turns to point the beam elsewhere.

>>4506992


"There's no such thing as monsters, Nat," Adam says. "It's probably, I don't know. A big stag ate some bad mushrooms and went crazy or something. Stabbed Fred with its antlers. Smashed up the truck. Whatever it is, it's probably long gone by now."

Should you kill one of them now, to show them how wrong he is? Or let their fear steep further?

>Kill the man. You want to hear the woman scream more.
>Kill the woman. It will weaken their resolve.
>Attack them, but let them live.
>Stay hidden. There's no hurry. You have all night.

>>4506994
>Stay hidden. There's no hurry. You have all night.
It will be sweeter after they allow hope to grow.

>>4506994
>Stay hidden. There's no hurry. You have all night.

>>4506994
>>Stay hidden. There's no hurry. You have all night.

>>4506994
>Arrow through the man’s head. The woman will panic, the rest will have lost a voice of reason.

>>4506994
>>4507004
>>4507034
>>4507036


You stay motionless as Adam and Nat walk back to the cabin to tell their friends the truck is in pieces. There's no need to hurry. Soon one or more of them will be heading out to the woodshed to check for tools or spare parts. Perhaps you will ambush them there, or set a trap for them ahead of time, or perhaps you will attack the cabin while their numbers are reduced. There are many choices, and the moon is yet low in the sky. Your anticipation grows. This night's hunt will be a good one. Whichever prey proves most worthy shall join the many other trophies in your home. You are already thinking about which part you might take from who, and where it would fit best in your collection.

The Great Darkness whispers to you, and you know that it is pleased.

>>4507071

SARAH
Earlier that day


The sign says "Exit 66" except that somebody has spray-painted a third 6 in between the other two. Another sign just past it, a deer-crossing sign, is riddled with bullet holes. Both seem all too fitting for what lies ahead of you.

"Almost there," you say, glancing over at Grace. She doesn't answer, leaning against her hand as she stares out the window at the trees passing by. With her fair skin and the sun shining on her golden hair, she's like an angel who somehow wound up in the passenger seat of your beat-up sedan. An angel in a hiking jacket and jeans. At least she's not all fluff -- had practical clothes for the job. "Hey, you hear me?"

"What?" Grace shakes herself out of it. "Oh, yeah. Sure."

"You okay? You've been spacing out all day."

"I'm fine. Just didn't sleep well."

You remember well enough, last night in the motel, waking up to Grace screaming. "Look, bad dreams are pretty normal. After what you went through and all. I had 'em myself, the first few weeks. Two or three times a night. I'd see the Butcher coming at me with that big cattle stunner in his hand. Tried to run away, but the slaughterhouse was a maze, endless hallways that all looked the same. Sometimes I'd wake up before he got me. Sometimes."

Grace shakes her head slowly, looking out the window again. "It wasn't that. It was about what's happened. It was about what's going to happen." She goes back into a trance of thought for a few moments, then snaps herself out of it. "Sorry, Sarah, I don't mean to be causing you worry. I'm ready for this."

"You sure?" you ask. "What we're getting into is some crazy shit. You've seen it yourself. Hell, I still think you should've stayed back in Greendale, tried to live a normal life. Wish I could talk you out of this, somehow."

"Not happening," Grace says. "If there's absolutely anything I can do to help you, I'm doing it. And you wouldn't have let me come along in the first place if there wasn't. So just accept that you've got an apprentice now and deal with it." She smiles at you. You can see how she must have stolen half the boys' hearts in town with that smile. "What's today's lesson in slasher hunting, chief?"

"Today's lesson is to always be mindful of your tools. Double-check you got what you need, and triple-check that everything's in working order. If your gun jams, your blade snaps, your flare doesn't go off, that could be the end of everything right there. You gotta rely on your tools, so make sure that you can. Speaking of which--" You pull the car off the highway onto a deserted rest stop, park with the trunk facing away from the road. "Weapons check. We've also got time for a few minutes of target practice, I think. See if you can handle your present."

>>4507072


You show Grace how to check over, load, and prepare the compact 9mm pistol you bought her. She has soft hands, not calloused and scratched like yours, but she grips the pistol firmly enough as you show her how to hold it. You then set up some empty beer cans, taken from the backseat well of your car, on a log bench. "Remember, squeeze the trigger, don't pull," you tell Grace.

It takes her a few tries, but she manages to hit a can eventually, and turns to you with a look of elation on her face. "I got it!"

"Nice work," you say, smiling yourself. "Finish off that magazine and show me you can reload properly. Then we'll have a look at the toolbox.

In the trunk of your car is a collection of everything you can think of that you might need on one of these jobs. All kinds of edged implements, tools, camping gear, improvised traps, miscellaneous items, and a few useful oddments from your arcane sponsors like Rhodes. Strapped in a place of honor on the underside of the trunk door is Young Betsy, a bloodstained aluminum baseball bat with a wrist strap and taped-up grip.

"Why is it called Young Betsy?" Grace asks.

"'Cause I broke Old Betsy over the head of an angry fella with a chainsaw. I used to play baseball, back in highschool. Guess I'm used to swinging a bat around. Might not be the smartest weapon but, it works for me. Now, let's decide what we're gonna carry when we head into the woods."

Ranged (choose 1)
>Sawn-off two-barrel shotgun, devastating at close range.
>Pump-action shotgun, well-suited to fighting at midrange in enclosed spaces.
>Hunting rifle, accurate at a distance.

Backup (choose 1)
>Machete
>Several knives
>Pistol
>Grenade


Gear (Choose 2 for yourself and 2 for Grace)
>First aid
>Flashlight
>Flares
>Rope
>Hammer
>Map
>Waterproof tarp
>Extra trail rations
>Occult talisman
>Tin can alarm
>Noisemaker
>Colored smoke grenade
>Write-in, something you could buy from a hardware, hunting store, or gas station

File: sarah relaxin.jpg (48 KB, 563x907)

48 KB JPG

(Done for tonight, I will be back tomorrow, so feel free to take your time discussing your loadout)

>>4507074
>>Pump-action shotgun, well-suited to fighting at midrange in enclosed spaces.
Slashers tend to be extremely slippery at longer ranges.
>Several knives
One in each boot, one on the hip, and one in a shoulder holster. Just to make sure that we're never completely disarmed.
>First aid
In case one of us takes an errant swing from the slasher.
>Flares
Light up the area and can be tossed away, unlike the flashlight.

>>4507074
>Sawn-off two-barrel shotgun, devastating at close range.
Because really, when do Slashers ever appear at longer ranges?
>Several knives
Never enough spare knives. But we can try.

SARAH
>Occult talisman
Because the Hunt is happening in the woods, so occult nonsense is highly probable.
>First Aid
Victims regularly are wounded when found alive.

GRACE
>Kerosene Lantern
Provides steady, bright light, and can double as an incediary device.
>Map
Because the macguffin will be located on it at the naratively appropriate moment

>>4507077
(So happy you're running this again.)

>>4507074
>Pump-action shotgun, well-suited to fighting at midrange in enclosed spaces.
>Machete

Sarah
>First aid
>Crowbar

Grace
>Flashlight
>Flares

>pump-action shotgun
My understanding is that a hunting rifle works best when you have a clean bead on a target, and you can afford some time. A long-range shotgun allows for bullet spread assurance + range
>several knives
If shotgun goes down, or we lose pistol/machete/grenade in a worst case scenario, all we got is barehands. Carry multiple knives, we have multiple backups for close quarters combat, as well as some added ranged components.
>SARAH: Flashlight
Everyone needs a light source
>SARAH: Occultic talisman
9/10, woodland monsters tend to be either the twisted spirit, crazed shaman, or government experiment-type.
>GRACE: Flares
Multiple emergency light sources
>GRACE: 1st Aid Kit
1. Basic necessities. 2. While Sarah interviews and surveys the area, Grace would patch people up. I know hunting experience is necessary and not-cheap, but is it a solid plan to put the novice on the front lines so soon?

>>4507074
>Pump action
>Machete

We are going thorugh a spooky forest. I would rather have something to clear any vegetation which might catch my clothes.

SARAH
>Flashlight
>First aid

GRACE
>Kerosene lamp (could it be some of the ones which can be "blinded", allowing to snuff out the light without actually snuffing out the flame?
>Map

I feel that the phillosophy of a light source per person is a good one. We also have to take into account our objective, finding and destroying the heart. Random occult things are not reliable enough. Knowing the terrain is essential.

>>4507074
>Hunting rifle, accurate at a distance.
>Machete

Sarah
>Rope
>Hammer
Grace
>Waterproof tarp
>Extra trail rations

>>4507074
>Pump-action shotgun, well-suited to fighting at midrange in enclosed spaces.
>Machete

SARAH
>Flashlight
>Rope

GRACE
>Flares
>Extra trail rations

>>4507074
>Pump-action shotgun, well-suited to fighting at midrange in enclosed spaces.
>Several knives
>First aid
>rope
>map
>flash light

>>4507752
Support

Every vote without a light source is just asking to be killed. Flares and kerosene lamp are both not reliable enough, we really need a flashlight.

>>4507074
Are there flamethrowers?

>>4507267
>>4507074

+1

>>4507914
Flashlights are less reliable than flame-based lights. Slashers cause supernatural nonsense, which are more troublesome with electric stuff.
*This is opinion, not fact.

>>4507074
Looks like we've got ourselves some ties. I'll break them.

>Several knives
Something to jab into the slasher if we get grabbed and need an opening or a flinch to slip out. Trying to go toe to toe with a slasher with a machete seems ill-advised. We already have a melee weapon anyway, Young Betsy. I guess a machete has camping purposes too? A survival knife is still useful for that though.

>Grace: Extra trail rations
A map's not much use without landmarks, and those are hard to come by in a slasher-infested forest.

>>4508341
While I Will admite the map might not be useful, extra rail rations seem like a waste. We are not going to go hungry in here. Most likely the usue Will be solved in a day
>>4507384
Change machete for knives (give one to Grace) and map for occult talisman

>>4507074


The pump-action shotgun is your trusty mainstay, a reliable weapon useful in all kinds of environments and ranges. Worked out nicely in the Blackwell incident. The stock could use a replacement sometime soon, sure, got more than a few blade notches in it by now, but it'll still serve. You load up your ammo shoulder belt mostly on regular slugs -- from the sounds of things, the Hunter is a relatively corporeal enemy -- but you take a few of the salt-and-iron shells along just in case.

You look back a forth a few times between the big machete and the rack of smaller knives, before deciding on the smaller ones. "You can never have too many knives," you tell Grace as you stash one in your sleeve, another in your belt, a third under your shoulder, and a fourth in your boot. The fifth one you hand to Grace. "Just in case."

For utility gear, you take the small first aid kit, strapping it to your belt on the other side, and the heavy-duty maglite flashlight. Should be good for finding your way in the woods when it gets dark, and in a pinch it comes in handy as an improvised club. Grace takes a portable bag of flares and some extra food for the trail: several bags of nuts and dried berries, plus a few Snickers bars. "We could be out there a while, and staying on alert the whole time, running around, you burn through stamina fast. Got to keep your energy up."

The last stop before heading into the woods is a tiny, run-down gas station. You tell Grace to head inside and find something for you both to eat, while you fill up the Mazda.

Starting up the gas pump and letting it run, you look over the beat up old car, all the scratches and dents and faded paint. It used to be your father's, until he gave it to you on your sixteenth birthday. Used to be you'd just drive it to school and back. Then, when everything changed, and you made your decision, you drove out of town and never looked back. Since then it's taken you up to Canada, down to Mexico, and across America more than once. You've packed a lot of action into the five years since the Butcher. You wonder how long it will last. Maybe it'll give out before you do. Maybe.

You hear a crashing sound from the gas station, and turn to see a commotion inside through the dusty windows. Grace makes a hasty exit, saying over and over, "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry--" She runs to your side, grabs onto your sleeve, points towards the open door.

>>4508401

A wiry old man emerges from the station, glaring at you with one good eye, the other scarred over and useless. "Sign says 'Closed'," he says menacingly.

"What sign?" you ask him.

He turns and points at a rectangular-shaped blank spot in the dust on the door window. Pauses. Scratches his grey whiskers, thinking. Reaches down into the dirt, picks up a sign, brushes it off, hangs it in the door, turns it to read 'Closed'. Spits a wad of tobacco spit. Turns back to you. "Sign says 'Closed'," he repeats.

"We just need some gas and food, and we'll be on our way," you tell him. "We can pay in cash."

"You heading into the woods?" the old man asks, then spits again. "Shouldn't be doing that. I told that family, I told them they shouldn't go in there. It'll be fine, they said to me. Just stories. They don't mean anything. Never came out again. Mom and pop, grandad, two kids. All gone. Now you'll be next. Ought to turn right around and head back where you came from."

"We'll be fine," you tell him, crossing your arms. "We know what we're in for. We know what's in there. We're ready for him."

The old man stares at you. For a moment you feel like his sightless eye is looking right through you. "Maybe you are, young miss, and maybe you aren't. God will tell."


>Ask what he knows about the Hunter.
>Ask if he can tell you anything useful about the forest itself.
>Ask where you might find regular people, where they might be staying.
>Ask something else (Say what)
>Be on your way.

>>4508404
>Ask what he knows about the Hunter.

>>4508404
>Ask what he knows about the Hunter.

>>4508404
>Ask if he can tell you anything useful about the forest itself.

>>4508404
>Ask how long he's been around these parts, then What he knows about the Hunter.

>>4508401
>You load up your ammo shoulder belt
(For my visualizations, is the belt angled across as a bandolier, or upright like a half-suspender, or crosswise over the back and shoulders like a tiny vest?)

>>4508404
>Ask what he knows about the Hunter.

>>4508404
>>Ask if he can tell you anything useful about the forest itself.

>>4508404
>>Ask if he can tell you anything useful about the forest itself.

>>4508404

"That thing. The one that lives in the woods," you say. "What do you know about him?"

The man glares at you critically. "Young miss, the less you know the better. Didn't I tell you to turn tail? If you want to survive to see tomorrow, that's what you'll do."

In these situations, all you know how to do is act tough. "Look, old man," you say, putting a warning note in your voice. "This is serious business for us. If you know anything you think would help, you'd better tell me."

"Or what?"

"Or I'll drag it out of you, if I have to. But I'd rather not hurt you."

Thin, cracked lips spread into a smile. "It's been a while since the war, but I still know how to throw a punch. I've never hit a girl before, but that doesn't mean I'm not willing to. You got equal rights now, you know?"

You take a step forward, getting pissed off, but Grace says, "Wait, please," and puts a hand on your stomach, gently stopping you. She looks to the old man. "We want to help. We don't want anyone else to get hurt. Now, I'm new to this, I admit, but she's not. She knows what she's doing. I believe she can do this. She can stop people disappearing. And we have the best chance of making that happen if you help us by telling us what you know."

The old man fixes his eyes on Grace. "You've seen him, haven't you? The antler man."

Grace doesn't say anything, but the look in her eyes is enough.

>>4508486

The edge of the forest isn't far. You can see it from here, only a few miles away, the green line of trees standing atop the uneven slopes of the hills. The old man gazes that way.

"Heard the stories since I was young," he says eventually. "I grew up just a short ways north of here, town called Willow Grove. You might've passed through on your way. Us kids would tell each other stories about him around the campfire, trying to scare each other, about how if you went into Redleaf Woods, he would get you. The antler man. The Hunter. He'd toy with you, maybe. Play with his food. But eventually he'd finish you, and you ended up the same way. Skinned and gutted. Food for the cellar. It ain't that he's a cannibal, so much that he just sees human beings as another type of animal."

The old man pauses to spit another jet of tobacco spit into the dirt. "As you grow older, y'know, those types of stories fade away. The world becomes solid and real. You stop believing in monsters. But I never forgot those stories, somehow. And as the years went by, I started to realize things. People gone missing, or found dead. Usually in groups of five or six. Sometimes the youngest girl would survive, sometimes she wouldn't. One time I met a park ranger, white as a sheet, drinking in the town bar, telling anyone who would listen about what he saw. No-one would believe the stories people told, about what they found in those woods. But there was a pattern, all right, and I saw it. He's real. And he's out there."

"They say he hunts in the way men used to hunt, in the old days. Bow and arrow, blade in the hand. Chase your prey. Herd them into a trap, or just tire them out until they can't run anymore. He's got the ears and nose of a wolf, they say, smell and hear you from far off. No point in trying to hide. If you go into those woods, he'll find you. Just a matter of when he lets you know he's there.

"One other thing ... I asked Old Lady Marisa about this once, back before I was old myself, and she went to her grave. She had heard a story once about a hunter's lodge, deep in the heart of the woods, tucked away in an hidden valley where nobody ever goes. If there were a man who made those woods his hunting grounds, far from where any other man would find him ... I'd think that would be a good place for it."

You pay for the gas. Grace talks the man into letting her back into the store, where she buys some food, and jogs back to the car with a wave and a thank-you. He seems happier about the thanks than the money. "I'm not much good at talking to people, these days," you admit to Grace as she gets in the car with you. "So I guess I'm glad I've got you along for that, if nothing else."

"Happy to be of service, chief."

>>4508487

You pull away from the gas station. In the rear view mirror, you can see the old man raising a hand in farewell. You wonder if you'll ever see him again, and if not, if he'll ever find out what happened to you, either way.

The inside of the car is quiet as you drive. The woods are getting closer, along with the imminent confrontation that waits within. Grace is spacing out again, looking out the window. Should you talk about something, or let her be? Might be good to get her mind off things. It's defintely not that you need to get your mind off things. Or at least that's what you tell yourself.

>Ask about her life before the Blackwell incident.
>Tell her a story about another slasher hunt.
>Tell a dumb joke.
>Play some tunes.
>Something else (Say what)
>Just let things be.

>>4508491
>>Tell a dumb joke.

>>4508491
>>Play some tunes.

>>4508491
>>Tell a dumb joke.

>>4508491
>Just let things be.

>>4508491
>Ask about her life before the Blackwell incident.

>>4508491
>Ask about her life before the Blackwell incident.
We need her to be focused.

>>4508491
>Tell her a story about another slasher hunt.

>>4508491
>Ask about her life before the Blackwell incident

>>4508491

"So, tell me something about yourself," you say. "Like, before all this. What did you get up to?"

"What brought this on?" asks Grace.

"I don't know. We've been rolling together two weeks now. About to put our lives on the line here. But I still feel like I hardly know anything about you. So uh. Just trying to get to know you, I guess. What was your life like in Greendale? You seem like you'd be real popular. Beautiful, talented, friendly. You've got a lot going for you."

"I did have a lot of friends, but--" Grace trails off, is silent for a few moments. "There's two types of friends, you know? The kind you hang with because it fits the image you want to project, and the kind you can talk to. Lots of people wanted to hang out with me, invited me to their parties and get-togethers, but I think it was just because I fit the image they wanted of themselves. And the image I wanted of myself, I suppose. So I had lots of the first kind. The second kind? Not so much."

"Boyfriend?" you ask.

"No," she says, laughing a little. "I, uh, never found the time." She looks out the window. "It's weird, though. Just two weeks ago that was my life. Now it all feels like it happened to a totally different person."

"I know what you mean," you say. "On both counts. I used to do a lot of athletic stuff, you know, baseball, track and field. I had my team, which was cool and all, but would they have liked me if I couldn't run fast or hit hard? Who knows. Then once the Butcher happened, everything that seemed so important just kinda ... poof. Turned into smoke."

"That was five years ago, right?" Grace asks, looking back at you. "How do you keep going?"

Good question. How DO you keep going? You feel like if you stopped and thought about it, you might break down and never fix yourself. "I just keep moving forward," is what you tell her. "And don't look back."

You think back on that statement, later, thinking of the irony, when you find the dirt road into the forest blocked by a fallen tree.

>>4510122

"I expected something like this," you say to Grace as you both start getting your gear ready for the hike. "Really, it's for the best. This way my car won't get beat up. Well. Any more than it already is. Once we're done what we need to do, we'll hike back here, and the car will be ready for us."

"How long of a walk is it going to take us?" Grace asks. "Do you even know where you're going?"

"No. But I'm not worried. I always seem to get where I'm going. I think it's like--" You pause, thinking of how to describe the phenomenon you've encountered. "Slashers are tied to the land, right? The place where they died becomes their territory. Their lair. I think they have some influence over those places. They want to draw people in, and keep them from leaving. That's bad for the victims, but good for us, because we want to find them." You look at the foreboding woods. "I hope you're up for a nature hike. This could take a while."

You start your journey into the woods, you in front, Grace following close behind. The trees crowd in close to each other, a dense maze of pine and ash and thornbush. The only way forward is the dirt path that twists and meanders, going up hills and down gulleys, around thickets and across creeks. The trail is badly maintained, and several times you and Grace have to help each other clamber over fallen trees, climb down and up valleys with collapsed bridges, lower each other down past broken stairways. Occasionally a flock of crows flies overhead, screaming and cawing. Once, you come across one in your path, standing with a dripping beak over the carcass of a snake. You throw a rock at it to scare it off.

Pausing by a brook to eat some of the trail mix, you skip a few stones in the water. By now the sun is sinking low in the sky. "Gonna be dark soon," you say to Grace. "That's how I like it, though. The monsters can see better than us in the dark, but that makes them confident. Easier to bait. I prefer to take them on when they feel like they're safe. Show them they're wrong."

"It's so quiet," Grace says, looking up at the trees. "There's no birdsong at all, only the crows. All I can hear right now is the wind in the trees."

"Animals know better than to hang around a slasher lair. The only ones who like it are scavengers. Crows. Wolves. That sort of thing."

"Th-there aren't any wolves in Indiana," Grace says, looking around nervously. "Right?" A sudden rustling and loud noise in the bush behind her startles her and she lets out a squeaking sound as something bursts out, but it's just a crow, cawing as it flies skyward. Grace still falls over from the stump she was sitting on. "God dammit," she mutters.

>>4510123

You restrain yourself from laughing, just help Grace up to her feet and brush off the pine needles from her jacket. "Don't worry about animals. I think the biggest killer around here is a bobcat, and I'm pretty sure we can handle one of those." Of course, the rules of the regular world don't always apply in this scenarios. But you feel like Grace has enough on her mind without you mentioning that.

You get back on the trail. A short time later, you hear Grace's footsteps pause, and look back to see her staring into the forest, off to the side. "See something?" you ask her.

"I'm not sure ..." She steps off the trail, heading into the forest.

You follow her, keeping a sharp eye on your route back to the trail. Don't want to get lost out here.

Grace looks around, then takes a few more steps; then this process repeats a few times, like she's not sure where she's going. You don't interrupt her, though. Eventually she finds what she was searching for. A wreath, suspended from a tree branch, made from small bones, sinews, and twigs arranged in an intricate pattern. One of the bones is snapped cleanly in half.

"What is it?" you ask Grace. She doesn't answer. Instead she takes the wreath from the branch and holds it in both hands. She has a look of concentration on her face, as though she's totally focused on this thing.

You're not sure what's going on, and you have a bad feeling about this, but on the other hand -- Rhodes, the mystic, said something about how Grace would be good at this mystical mumbo-jumbo sort of thing, the stuff that you have absolutely no talent at. Maybe you should let this happen. Whatever it is.

>Let Grace do whatever she's doing.
>Snap her out of it, but hang on the bone wreath.
>Break that thing and get rid of it.

>>4510125
>>Let Grace do whatever she's doing.
Add witty commentary as needed.

>>4510125
>Let Grace do whatever she's doing.

>>4510125
>Let Grace do whatever she's doing.

probably receiving some sort of psychic phone call from antler man

>>4510125
>Let Grace do whatever she's doing.
Just keep our shotgun in hand.

>>4510125
>>Snap her out of it, but hang on the bone wreath.

>>4510125
>Break that thing and get rid of it.

>>4510125
>Break that thing and get rid of it.
It's a trap

>>4510125


You stay hands-off. Let Grace do whatever it is that she's doing. Maybe she can figure something out here.

You're hoping, on some kind of off chance, to get some kind of mystical insight or wisdom here. And that nothing bad happens to Grace. But you're still on high alert. So when a bright orange light flares up in the center of the wreath and Grace lets out a cry of pain, you grab her by the wrist and twist, forcing the wreath out of her hands. It burns away, leaving nothing but ash, before it even hits the ground.

"Are you all right?" you ask urgently. "What happened?" You use your thumbs to open her hand, seeing scorch marks on her fingers.

"I'm all right," she says. She rubs her reddened fingers together, winces. "Stings a little, but that's all."

"You're sure?" you ask. "Here, I think there's burn gel or some shit in the first aid kit, hold on."

"I'm fine, really," she says, but you make her sit down and hold her hands out while you clean off the burns and apply the gel anyway.

"So um. What did you see?" you ask while doing so.

"I saw -- well, I saw some weird stuff. But I learned some things. I'm pretty sure this was left here by the guy we're looking for. It was like an alarm, or a tripwire. Something that lets you know when danger is coming. But I think it went off before we arrived. The snapped bone showed him. Before we even got here, he knew we were on the way."

"Too bad for him." You look down at the small pile of ash on the ground, all that remains of the bone wreath. "Still, it wouldn't hurt to be extra careful for traps on the way."

"There's something else," Grace says. "This isn't the only one. There's some kind of, I don't know, force? It's being drawn here by other things like that wreath. I could feel it, deeper in the forest. Like torches burning in the dark. We should be on the lookout for other--" She gestures with her hands, not knowing what to say. "Spooky bone magic things."

"Okay then. Spooky bone magic radar activated." You look at Grace appraisingly. "Maybe Rhodes was right when he said you have a talent for this sort of thing."

"I'm just glad to be useful," she says, and laughs nervously. Then she get serious again. "Look, Sarah -- do you know anything about what creates these monsters? What brings them back?"

"To be totally honest, I have no idea," you say. "I leave that sort of thing to people with bigger brains than me.

"I see," she says. Seems like she's about to ask something else, but instead she just says, "We'd better get moving again."

"Right," you say. You stand up, shift the weight of your gear, and step out on the trail again, wondering just what it was that she saw.

>>4511308

HUNTER
Midnight

Still and silent as a stone, you have waited. You have watched and listened as the prey grows ever more restless. Their wounded comrade saps their compassion, while secretly they grow resentful of the burden he imposes on them. They argue with each other over the right course of action, talking in circles. Most of all they are afraid, fearful of what lurks unknown in the darkness outside the cabin.

A memory flickers, like a dim spark, somewhere in your mind. A memory of your previous life, before you found your face. A man telling you that fear and panic ruin the taste of a hunted animal; that it should be killed cleanly, without even knowing the hunter was there.

He was wrong. The emotion of prey is more flavorful than any taste, more satisfying than any meal. It can quench any thirst and sate any hunger. You will eat their hope, savor their fear, feast on their pain.

Once more you give thanks to the Great Darkness, the being that returned you from the beyond to wreak your vengeance upon those with beating hearts.

Besides your new form, cold and strong as iron, with the ability to hear and smell like a predator, what boon has the darkness bestowed upon you?

>Blood Scent: You smell traces of blood at a great distance, and thus can track any creature you have injured.
>Grudge Holder: You seek vengeance against those who have wronged you, and thus can track any creature that has injured you.
>Territorial: You guard your domain against other predators, and thus can sense when any creature infringes upon your home, the hunter's lodge.

>>4511311
>>Blood Scent: You smell traces of blood at a great distance, and thus can track any creature you have injured.
It is only natural. Hunters smell blood.

>>4511311
>Territorial: You guard your domain against other predators, and thus can sense when any creature infringes upon your home, the hunter's lodge.

>>4511311
>Blood Scent: You smell traces of blood at a great distance, and thus can track any creature you have injured.

>>4511311
>Blood Scent: You smell traces of blood at a great distance, and thus can track any creature you have injured.

>>4511311
>Grudge Holder: You seek vengeance against those who have wronged you, and thus can track any creature that has injured you.

>>4511311
>Blood Scent: You smell traces of blood at a great distance, and thus can track any creature you have injured.

>>4511311
>Blood Scent: You smell traces of blood at a great distance, and thus can track any creature you have injured.

>>4511311
>Blood Scent

>>4511311
>>Territorial: You guard your domain against other predators, and thus can sense when any creature infringes upon your home, the hunter's lodge.

>>4511311

Once you have injured a creature, they are marked. You can smell their blood unerringly at a great distance. Their distance and location, even what they are doing, comes to you clearly on the wind. The Fool you injured earlier, for example: you know, as unquestionably as though he were standing right in front of you in broad daylight, that he is lying in the back room of the cabin, his bandages have recently been changed, and he is groaning in pain from his wound. You know how much blood he has lost, and how much more he has yet to lose before he dies. He will not last until the dawn.

You will leave him alive, for a time, to drain the others of their strength, to use their compassion against them. But rather than allow blood loss to take hold and let him slowly fade away, you would prefer to kill him yourself, to make it painful.

You have been patient. You have waited. But it has been long enough. It is time. There must be blood, and death, and vengeance. And when the killing is done, there will be more trophies will adorn the sacred space of your hunting lodge.

Listening carefully, you can hear two conversations between the beasts-that-talk inside the cabin.

One is an argument, between the two you witnessed outside earlier, by the vehicle: the Whore, Nat, and the Soldier, Adam. Whether to stay or go; whether the wounded Fool, Fred, will survive; what caused his injury, and the destruction of the truck. The discussion derails; personal grievances are brought up, insults are exchanged; nothing is decided. They can be so weak and indecisive. If prey is to survive, they must decide quickly to flee or freeze; this quibbling only serves your purposes.

A second conversation is much quieter, but with your keen ears you can discern what they are saying. The sensible-sounding woman is talking softly to someone who isn't saying much back. "I know you're scared," she's saying. "But it's all going to work out. We're going to get help from someone, and Fred is going to be okay. All of us will get home safe and sound. Okay?"

A younger voice replies, a boy, pre-adolescent. "What about the monster?" He is perhaps eleven, twelve summers. Around the same age as you, when your face was put on and locked in place. When you first changed.

"Sweetie, there's no monster," the woman says. "I know it's dark and scary outside, but it was -- it was just a big deer or a bear or something. And now it's gone. We're going to be fine. Your big sister Emily is going to protect you, okay?"

"You promise?"

"I promise." You can hear the false confidence in her voice. She does not believe her own words. She knows in her heart that something is wrong, very wrong, but cannot bring herself to admit it. The Scholar cannot defy her own rationality, and it will be her downfall.

>>4512759

The argument breaks up. The woman, Nat, storms off in anger and helpless frustration. In the cloud of emotions overtaking her mind, she foolishly isolates herself, exiting the front door of the cabin and standing on the porch. She shivers in the night cold, rubbing her arms, and peers out into the darkness.

You are there, watching, but she does not see you.

She is the Whore, and you can smell the wickedness and impurity on her. Doubtless she rutted with her bondmate, the Fool, before you began your work tonight. Her place is at the beginning of the ritual.

It is time. She will be first. How will you kill her?

>Axe
>Bow
>Trap

>>4512760
>>Bow

Snipe her. The others will find her body nailed to the wall by an arrow through the throat.

>>4512760
>Trap
As in, it's not a she.

>>4512760
>Trap
We must prolong her death as long as possible to drive the rest into despair

>>4512760
>Axe

nice and personal

>>4512760
>>Trap
Paranoia of the unseen is greater than any weapon.

>>4512760
>>Trap

>>4512760
>axe

>>4512760
>>4512761
I'm changing my vote to
>Axe

>>4512760


Lost in thought, the whore walks down the front stairs from the porch, one slow step at a time, rubbing her arms against the cold. At the bottom of the stairs, a tripwire strung between the two railings is triggered, and she pauses at the unusual sensation. If she had thrown herself to the ground, immediately, or dodged forward or backward, she might have avoided her impending doom. But the beast-that-talks has slow reflexes, and often fails to react to danger until it is too late.

From their position on the ground, carefully hidden with overlaid grass and forest detritus, , two split tree trunks lined with sharpened stakes snap upwards, like the jaws of a great beast closing. They impale the woman from both sides, stabbing the stakes deep into her vulnerable flesh.

She tries to scream, but her lungs are punctured. She struggles, but can't free herself from the trap's jaws. She pulls at the stakes, but can't get a grip, her hands slipping on her own blood. Soon she goes limp, falling unconscious from blood loss, her face peaceful as she passes beyond thought or action.

She is rather beautiful, you note. Especially now, as she dies. Her head is mostly intact. You may take her as a trophy for the collection, if the others do not prove themselves of any substance. They still have a chance, though. They may yet prove themselves worthy of joining the hallowed reliquary at the heart of your lodge.

It is the other woman, Emily, who finds the her. Ironic after the promise to her kinmate that they would all be safe, to now find herself proven so wrong, so quickly. She does not quite understand what she is seeing, at first, in the darkness. Only when she descends the stairs to take a closer look does she grasp what she is looking at. She cries out, trying to help, to wrench the sharp stakes free, but all it does is hasten the blood loss, and thus her demise. She is helpless to do anything except watch her friend die.

Hands now smeared in her friend's blood, she begins to weep; the sound draws both of her uninjured companions out from the cabin. Her bondmate, Adam, attempts first to give her comfort, then to extract the body from the trap. Her kin, the young boy, stands back on the front porch of the cabin. You notice he is looking directly at you. You are well hidden here in the darkness, but the boy's eyes rest on you nonetheless. Perhaps he knows you are there. Children are sensitive to such things, as some beasts are: in tune with senses that adults have forgotten, they can see or hear things that exist with one foot in two worlds, such as you.

>>4514096


The man is struggling to free the dead woman from the stakes, but his bondmate eventually convinces him it is too dangerous to remain outside, that they must retreat inside and lock themselves in. He reluctantly agrees, and they abandon the body, re-entering the cabin.

What they don't know is that you are already in the cabin, standing silent in the back room they have used as a makeshift infirmary for their wounded friend.

As they struggled with the corpse, you slipped around to the back entrance -- in their haste to aid their wounded companion, they left it unlocked, and a stealthy entry was easy. The location of the man you injured was clear as day to you, having spilled his blood and gained his scent.

The man lies on sheets stained with his blood, mumbling to himself in a hazy half-consciousness. He does not realize you are here.

In some way, you are granting him mercy. He will never find out that his bondmate has died outside.

Instead, the others will work up the nerve to tell him the bad news, enter this room, and find ...

>A gruesome scene of slaughter, axe-chopped and mangled.
>A silent assassination, a cut throat and windpipe.
>Nothing at all. The body will vanish, leaving no signs of passage.

>>4514099
>Nothing at all. The body will vanish, leaving no signs of passage.
Make them think he went on his own; divide them further.

>>4514099
>A gruesome scene of slaughter, axe-chopped and mangled.
We've been going all-in on fear factor, might as well continue the trend.

>>4514099
>Nothing at all. The body will vanish, leaving no signs of passage.

>>4514099
>A gruesome scene of slaughter, axe-chopped and mangled.

evenly spread along the walls

>>4514099
>A gruesome scene of slaughter, axe-chopped and mangled.

>>4514099
>A gruesome scene of slaughter, axe-chopped and mangled.

>>4514099
>A gruesome scene of slaughter, axe-chopped and mangled.

>>4514099
>A gruesome scene of slaughter, axe-chopped and mangled.

>>4514099
>>Nothing at all. The body will vanish, leaving no signs of passage.

This will make them panic more because they won't know if he's still alive.

>>4514099
>Nothing at all. The body will vanish, leaving no signs of passage.

>>4514099
>>A gruesome scene of slaughter, axe-chopped and mangled

>>4514099
>>A gruesome scene of slaughter, axe-chopped and mangled.

>>4514099

You grip the haft of your woodsman's axe, old durable oak, once polished and clean, now bandaged for grip and covered in dark stains. The blade is notched and worn, but still sharp, and its heavy weight still carries enough force to hew trees; to cut through flesh and bone is all too easy.

You step forward, silently, until you are next to the wounded man's bed. Standing between the room's single bare light bulb and the bed, your shadow falls across the man, disturbing his half-sleep.

"Nat?" he asks. "Is that you?" He opens his eyes, but his vision is hazy at first. It takes several seconds for him to resolve what he is seeing into focus; to comprehend that the looming shadow above him is not, in fact, one of his companions; to realize his fate. He opens his mouth wide in a loud cry of fear, shouting for help from someone, anyone.

No-one can help him.

You raise the axe high above your head, and bring it down in a swift arc. Blood jets. The shout transforms into a scream of pain, then another as you cut again. Wails that reach a higher, more agonized pitch with each cut. You chop and hew with heavy swings, putting your full weight and strength into each strike. The walls and ceiling are spattered with red. Even the light in the room turns red-tinted, as blood splashes on the bulb overhead.

The act is over in moments. Soon the limbs and trunk are mangled and torn, cut to pieces with rending blows. What was once a body inhabitited by a living mind is now nothing more than blood and guts and bone, spread in a mess across the bed, the sheets, the walls, all across the room. You take one last look at your handiwork, feeling a grim satisfaction in the bloody mess, an abatement of hunger, the closest thing to joy in your shadowed existence.

Then you leave the cabin. You time your exit to stay just out of the field of view of the other beasts, who are running inside to investigate the cries of pain. But you allow blood to drip from your axe as you walk, leaving a trail to the backdoor. They will know that someone has entered, butchered their friend, and left, and there was nothing they could do to stop it.

Leaving the cabin and the shocked cries of the surviving beasts behind, you walk off through the backyard and into the familiar, comforting darkness between the trees, ready to plan your next move.

>>4515102

But something is amiss.

You pause, and listen carefully. The woman is mournful. The man is swearing vengeance. But there is another sound, beyond them. Something else. Something that should not be there.

Someone else walks in the forest tonight.

You think back to the broken bone-trap that showed you danger was on the way. Is this what the bones warned you about? Has the danger come already?

If so, you welcome it. Too many winters have passed since you hunted a truly worthy prey. You will clash with the interlopers, and show yourself to be the apex predator of these woods. And in a place of honor amongst your collection of trophies, you will mount their heads, and prove to the Great Darkness your worthiness once more.

>>4515104


GRACE

The mist has cleared by the time you reach the cabin. Its wooden timbers, and the grass of the ceiling it stands in, are lit up in a ghostly illumination by pale moonlight shining from the crescent high above.

You had recently suggested to Sarah that you find a place to camp out for the night, and press on again in the morning. But the screams coming through the trees alerted you both. So instead, you made your way towards the sounds, walking carefully in the dark, wary of an ambush or trap.

Good thing, too, as while you were on the trail, Sarah's flashlight glimmered against a piece of metal hidden in a pile of leaves. Passing off the flashlight to you, and crouching to carefully examine it, Sarah found and disarmed a rusty sawtooth beartrap that would have snapped clean through a bone if it was set off.

Now you've reached the cabin, the source of the screams. You take in the scene: the wreckage of the truck, the strange shape at the bottom of the front steps, the loud voices coming from inside.

"I hate arriving when things have already kicked off like this," Sarah complains. "Too much crying. Sometimes they even come at me. Like, "oh, I'm upset and I don't know you and you exist, you must have something to do with this! Raaargh!" I've seen some people on the scene who died that way, you know. Cops or neighbors who show up to investigate a disturbance or a noise complaint, get killed by people who are jumpy as hell and think it's the monster. So let's not be those guys." She starts checking over her shotgun again, then pauses. "Say, I have a bright idea. Since you're so willing to help me out and all, and you're clearly better with people than I am, when we get in there, why don't you do the talking?"

"Uhh--"

"Great, thanks." Sarah pats you twice on the shoulder, then starts walking towards the cabin. "Let's get this over with. The sooner we figure out what's going on here, the sooner we can bag that sucker."

It looks like you've been volunteered for crisis intervention.

On the way into the cabin, what are you paying attention to, trying to learn something more about?

>The destroyed truck
>The corpse out front
>Tracks in the dirt
>Sarah

>>4515110
>The corpse out front
This seems like the most obvious thing that will occupy our mind. Chiefly whether we'll end up like that or not

>>4515110
>Sarah

>>4515110
>Tracks in the dirt
We see what that /thing/ can do, but how does it move? What is it?

File: TIES.png (18 KB, 276x141)

18 KB PNG

>>4515110
>The destroyed truck

>>4515110
D-definitely not Sarah, there's important business to be done.
>>The destroyed truck

>>4515110
>The corpse out front

>>4515110
>>The corpse out front
>I-it’s not like we’re interested in her or anything... baka

>>4515110
>The corpse out front

>>4515110
>Tracks in the dirt

>>4515110
>The corpse out front

File: lonesome cabin.jpg (11 KB, 640x360)

11 KB JPG

>>4515110

On the way up to the cabin, you stop to look at the gruesome sight at the bottom of the front stairs. A woman's body, still held upright by the twin rows of sharpened stakes impaled into her torso from either side, caught in some kind of exotic bushcraft trap. The grass below is dark with blood.

It's the first time you've seen a body this messed up. Back at the asylum, your friend Will was strangled trying to help you, but he looked peaceful in death. Like he had done what he needed to do before passing on, with hardly a scratch on him.

This, on the other hand, is brutal.

You wonder how long she survived with those wooden stakes piercing her torso. If she was able to scream for help or just struggled in futility until she ran out of strength. A sick feeling grows in your stomach.

"Hey," Sarah says, and you realize you've been staring at the body for a good few seconds. "This sort of thing happens. Best not to dwell on it."

You leave the body behind and follow Sarah up the steps to the cabin, trying to settle the feeling in your gut. You're not sure you learned anything other than the Hunter can fashion his own traps, and that death is super gross, and that closely examining a mangled body makes you feel ill.

Sarah motions for you to stand to the side of the door, rather than in front of it, while stands on the other side. She makes a shooting pistol motion and rolls her eyes. Seems like she's been shot at while announcing her presence before. She knocks loudly on the old, rattling door a few times. "Hey, anybody in there?" she calls out. "We're not the monster, we're just regular people!" Reaching carefully over to the doorknob, Sarah turns it, and the door opens. She rolls her eyes. "Door's not even locked," she mutters. "These guys are doing great at perimeter security." Raising her voice again, she says, "We're coming inside! If you've got guns, don't shoot us!"

>>4518868


You follow Sarah into what, under other circumstances, would be a cozy but run-down cabin. Bare timber walls. Old couches set around a stained coffee table. Wood-burning stove with an old kettle on top. A doorway leading to a bedroom, and a hallway leading off to the back.

Standing in front of the hallway, clustered together, is a group of three people. In front is a big guy, positioned to defend the other two, holding a shovel up in a threatening manner. Behind him is a woman and a young boy.

"A shovel, huh?" Sarah says. "Better that than I get shot at again, I guess."

"Who are you?" the man challenges. He keeps a tense grip on his shovel, moving the spade back and forth to point at you, then at Sarah. "What are you doing here?"

You raise your hands appeasingly, hoping you can calm him down. "We're here to help. You're dealing with a monster, right? That's what she -- what we do. We help people who are being attacked by these things." Sarah glances your way as you say that, and you wonder if that's strictly true. Is her priority saving people? Or just killing the monster?

"How do we know you're not with that -- with whatever's doing this?" the man asks.

"Adam, they've got guns," the woman says. "If they were on its side, I think we'd be screwed already."

"I know this is weird," you say. "But you can trust us. We just want to help. I'm Grace, and this is Sarah. Can you tell us your names?"

"You'll have to excuse us, it's been a hell of a night," the woman says, and laughs. You get the feeling she's just barely holding it together. "I'm Emily, this is my boyfriend Adam, and my little brother, Chris." The big guy, Adam, lowers his shovel, still looking supicious. The kid hasn't said anything, and his face is neutral; it's hard to get a read on him.

"I'm going to have a look around," Sarah says. "Grace, can you -- you know--?" She tilts her head towards the others. You nod affirmingly. You'll do your best to keep them calm while Sarah does her thing.

>Reassure them you can handle this.
>Be realistic about the situation.
>Emphathize with them.
>Write-in.

>>4518871
>Emphathize with them.

>>4518871
>Be realistic about the situation.

>>4518871
>Emphathize with them.
We've been there, we know how they feel- nah. Even if we feel bad for them, we can't let them get complacent because the "heroes are here".

>>Be realistic about the situation.
We'll do our best to get you out of this- but you CAN'T do anything stupid. People who do stupid shit in situations like these end up dead.

>>4518871
>Emphathize with them.

>>4518871
>>Reassure them you can handle this.

>>4518871
>Emphathize with them.

that's our job, right? Isn't Grace basically Deanna Troi?

>>4518871
>Be realistic about the situation.

>>4518871


You'll try to emphathize with their situation. "Seems like you guys have already been through a lot."

"My best friend and his girlfriend are fucking dead," Adam says. "And whatever killed them is still out there. So yeah, you could say that."

"I'm sorry about them," you say. "I know it's hard to lose someone close to you, especially when it's sudden and--" brutal? violent? bloody? "--difficult. But you guys are alive, and if we work together, we can keep it that way. I'm sure you're confused and frightened. You don't know what's happening, or why. But me and Sarah, we can help. We've been through this before. We know what to do. And if you trust us, we can get you through this. All of you."

You leave out the fact that everyone else was killed at the Asylum, and you were the only survivor. And that the same happened with Sarah, at the slaughterhouse. Surely it's possible to save more than one person. Right?

The kid is halfway hiding behind his big sister. You go down on one knee to talk to him. "Chris, right? I know you're scared. But it's going to be okay now. Me and my friend, we're going to protect you."

"You promise?" the kid asks.

You hesitate. You're not actually sure what's going to happen. You wanted to be realistic about their chances, but maybe it would be better to just reassure them everything's going to be all right.

And that's when the lights go out, and the cabin is plunged into darkness.

>>4523542

Adam and Emily's voices rise in a clamor. But Sarah comes back to the main room, her flashlight providing some light, and shouts them down until they're quiet. "Okay, so what was powering this place?" Sarah asks. "You guys have a generator?"

"Yeah," Adam says. "There's a gasoline generator, but--"

"But what?"

"It's out in the woodshed." Adam points to one of the windows. Through it you can see the shed, on the other side of the yard across a wide stretch of grass, faintly illuminated in the moonlight. "Could be it just ran out of gas. Or it could be that thing busted it up. It destroyed our truck easy enough."

Sarah pauses, weighing her options. "All right, everyone else stay here. I'm gonna go check it out."

"Alone?" you ask. You don't mean to question her methods, but -- you get close to her and say quietly, "Is splitting up a good idea?"

"We need to secure the cabin here," Sarah says. "If we can get the lights back on, even just for a little bit, it'll help."

"What about them?" you ask, indicating the others.

"That's why I need you to stay," she says. "Help them stay calm, make sure all the doors and windows are locked, get this place ready to hold out until sunrise. Don't worry about me," she says with a grin, and pats the baseball bat at her side. "I can handle myself."

Using her flashlight, Sarah helps the others find a camping lantern, a few candles, and a box of matches. "This should give you enough light until I get back."

"Hold on a minute," Emily says. "I'm going to come with you to the shed."

"I'll be fine on my own," Sarah says. "You see this shotgun, right?"

"Yeah, but is that going to help you fix the generator if it's broken? Can you shoot a blown spark plug, or a busted crankshaft? I know enough to make basic repairs. Just keep me safe from -- whatever's out there."

Sarah thinks it over. She looks annoyed. Maybe just embarassed to admit she wouldn't know how to fix the generator. "All right, fine. Stay close to me out there."

Adam asks, "Emily, are you sure about this? I could--"

"I know it stings your manly pride that I'm better with engines than you," Emily says with a smile. "But I can do this. And I think she can protect me out there. You stay here, get this place ready to hold out, and keep Chris safe for me. All right?" She gives Adam a quick kiss, then says to Sarah, "Okay, let's go."

>>4523552

You watch Sarah and Emily head out of the cabin towards the woodshed. "I hope your friend knows what she's doing," Adam says.

"She does," you say. If there's one thing you're confident about in this situation, it's that Sarah can handle herself. "Now, let's get moving. We've got to make this place as safe as we can by the time they get back."

In the light of the camping lantern you can see Adam's worried expression change to determination. Seems like he feels better with something to do. "Okay. I'll go around and start blocking any of the doors and windows I can. I saw a pile of loose planks earlier, if I find a hammer and nails I can board some of them up."

"Sounds good," you say. "Maybe let's leave the front door and one other exit open. It's probably good if we have an escape route if we need it."

Choose 2 actions to help secure the cabin:
>Help Adam block doors and windows.
>Search for cellar doors or other hidden spaces
>Talk with Chris.
>Do something about the bloody mess in the bedroom.
>Check the area outside the cabin for traps.
>Use your flares to light up the area outside the cabin.
>Meditate on the dark magic at work here.
>Write-in

>>4523557
>>Help Adam block doors and windows.
>Check the area outside the cabin for traps.

>>4523557
>>Help Adam block doors and windows.
>>Talk with Chris.

>>4523557
>>Help Adam block doors and windows.
>Check the area outside the cabin for traps.

>>4523557
>>Help Adam block doors and windows.
>>Search for cellar doors or other hidden spaces

>>4523557
>Do something about the bloody mess in the bedroom.
>Meditate on the dark magic at work here.

>>4523557
>>Talk with Chris.
>>Do something about the bloody mess in the bedroom.

>>4523557
>>Talk with Chris.
>>Do something about the bloody mess in the bedroom.

>>4523557
>Search for cellar doors or other hidden spaces
>Do something about the bloody mess in the bedroom.
someone has to clean this shit up, or at least throw a blanket on it or something.

>>4523557
>>Search for cellar doors or other hidden spaces

>>Do something the bloody mess in the bedroom.

>>4523557
>Search for cellar doors or other hidden spaces
>Meditate on the dark magic at work here

>>4523557

"I'm glad I brought this," Adam says, pulling a small toolkit out of his luggage. "Not exactly what I thought I'd be using it for, but it always helps to be prepared, right?"

"Why don't I help you get the doors and windows blocked up?" you say.

"Okay, uhh -- Grace, was it? Ever held a hammer before?" Adam asks, taking out the hammer and a box of nails from the toolkit.

You'd like to make some kind of crack about how he shouldn't assume that, just because you're a girl, you don't have experience with manly things like carpentry or house repairs. But the truth is you've never held a tool in your life, and it sounds like this guy is just asking a genuine question, not being snide. "No," you admit. "But what else can I do to help?"

"You can hold the boards in place while I nail them in," he says. "First, let's go around to all the doors and windows, double-check that they're locked. We should also look around for anything big and heavy we can use to block an entrance. Dressers, tables, beds, that sort of thing."

You help as best you can shoving furniture in front of doors and low windows, then start holding planks in place over the front windows as Adam nails them to the wall. The hammering shakes and jars your arms through the boards, but you manage. "You seem like you're handling yourself pretty well," you say. "Considering the situation."

"I could say the same about you," Adam says. "You seem awfully young to be a monster killer, or whatever you are." He finishes one board, helps you position the next one, starts hammering again. "How long have you been doing this?"

You think a moment, while trying to keep your arms steady. Two weeks, and this is my first time if you don't include when I was being chased down myself, is maybe not the best answer to inspire confidence. What would Sarah say? "Long enough to know what I'm doing," you tell him, trying to put some bravado into your voice.

He laughs. "Not very long, then. Your friend, I can believe she's been at it for a while. She's got the scars to prove it. Not you, though. That's okay, though. You're willing to help, and that's what matters."

Adam pauses on the upswing, lowers the hammer. "You know, my girlfriend's kid brother, Chris? He's the reason we came out here, to the cabin. He's been having a tough time at school. Bullies, that sort of shit. We thought, maybe a trip out to the woods with his big sis and her friends, get away from it all, might help him out. Instead we brought him into this."

He looks back at the room where he told Chris to stay put. "If anything happens, if shit hits the fan, stay close to him. Do what it takes to keep him safe. That's what you can do for us. Me and Emily can take care of ourselves. You just make sure you help Chris.." He raises the hammer again, puts one last good thwack into the nail, and takes a step back to look over his handiwork. "Okay, this window looks good. Let's tackle the other one."

>>4526728


Once the boarding-up is done, still trying to make yourself as useful as possible, you volunteer to try and deal with the bloody mess in the bedroom. Probably a mistake, you realize, when you try to move the mangled, slippery corpse and find out you don't have the strength for it. You could wrap it up in a sheet and drag it outside, but that'd probably leave a bloody smear all through the hallway and down the steps, which doesn't seem like a huge improvement over the current situation. In the end you settle for draping a dark blanket over the body, wadding up some of the bloody sheets and stuffing them into a garbage bag, and wiping up the major puddles of blood. Your hands get sticky with the man's blood as you're doing so, and for a moment, the absurdity of your situation hits you.

What are you doing here, out in the dark woods, wiping up a stranger's blood, maybe about to get killed by a horrible monster from beyond the grave?

You hear a noise behind you, a creaking floorboard; on edge, you whirl around, but it's just the young boy, watching you from the hallway. "Oh, hey. Chris, was it?" you ask him. "Look -- I know this is real scary, but I'm gonna help you get through this, okay? You're safe as long as you're with me."

"I saw him, you know," Chris says in a small voice.

"Saw who?" you ask, but you think you already know the answer.

"Him," the boy says. "The antler man."

"Where did you see him? In the woods, earlier tonight?"

The boy shakes his head. "In my dream. I fell asleep in the car, as we were driving into the woods. I saw him. I was walking through the woods at night, and then I found a deer. It was eating something, an animal, and I thought that was weird because deer don't eat animals, right? But then he stood up and I realized it was a man, and ... there was blood coming from his mouth, and he had sharp teeth ..." He lets out a sob, on the verge of crying. "We're all going to die tonight, aren't we? The antler man's going to get us, like he got Fred and Natalie. They're dead and now he's coming for us."

"Oh, no, honey," you say. "Come here." You kneel down in front of him and give him a hug, trying not to get the blood on your hands on his clean shirt. "You're going to be all right, okay? I'm going to keep you safe."

You don't know how you're going to do that, but you're damn sure going to try. If all you accomplish by joining up with Sarah is to keep this one kid safe, to die in his place, it'll have been worth it.

It would be better, of course, if you survived too. That would be ideal.

>>4526730

HUNTER

The beasts-that-talk have separated. Two of them have left the cabin and entered the smaller wooden shack, while three remain behind.

The sound of machinery used to come from that shack, but it quieted several minutes ago, and at the same time, the lights in the cabin went out. Perhaps the machine powered the lights, and now they are trying to fix it. They are afraid of the dark, as prey should be. They know that the shadows hide predators, sharp fangs and claws to tear and bite, to drag prey away to never be seen again.

One of the two who entered the shed was a target from before, the Scholar-woman. She is nothing. Her intellect will not save her from a blade or an arrow.

The other, however. The newcomer, the interloper. You get a strange feeling from her. She is strong, brave, capable. A familiar scent is on her. A scent like your own. She is not prey. She is more.

The Great Darkness knows her. You can feel it more clearly than ever, a black radiance in the back of your mind. Its frustration is like dark water, stirred into waves by the wind, under a moonless night. The Darkness wants her. It demands you give her to it. A sacrifice.

You will obey. What the Darkness wants, it gets. But in due time. You have your own ways of doing things. It is impatient. But you are still in control.

Where will you strike next, and how?

Choose 1
>The cabin.
>The woodshed.
Choose 1
>Up close
>At a distance
>With dark magic

>>4526731
>The cabin.
>With dark magic

>>4526731
>The woodshed.
>With dark magic

>>4526731
>>The cabin.
>With dark magic

>>4526731
>The cabin.
>With dark magic

>>4526731
>>The woodshed.
>Up close

>>4526731
>The woodshed
>With dark magic

>>4526731


Earlier that night, using bone and sinew from your previous hunts, you fashioned crude but effective effigies attuned to the world beyond. Through these talismans, you strengthened your link to the Great Darkness, granting you the ability to call upon its power now. Through you, that being from beyond death will work its magic, aiding you in the performance of the ritual that satisfies it so.

A snarling comes from the shadows. A flashing of fang and claw. In the narrow strips of moonlight, filtering dappled through the leaves, you see their shapes stalking, hear padded feet falling lightly on the soil. But the light does not glisten on their fur; instead it is swallowed up and vanishes into nothing. These wolves are fashioned entirely from darkness itself, beasts of shadow and air and malice. They are without flesh or bone, yet their eyes still gleam, piercing the night, and their teeth still glisten, deadly sharp, ready to pierce and tear.

You no longer have a voice, but you need not one to command them. Go, you think, and they do. The shadow-wolves approach the cabin, silent and hidden as ghosts. The beasts-that-talk inside are better prepared to defend themselves, this time, but it will not matter long.

Your bone totems empower your connection to the dark realm, allowing you to draw on powers beyond your normal limit. But all those do is strengthen an already existing conduit. You have a primary vessel for this link, a beating organ that pulses with hatred and vengeance. The blessings of that entity beyond, the unnatural vitality that quickens your form and grants you the strength and endurance of iron and stone, they flow into you along channels like veins, all leading to this. Your dark heart.

Where is it located, beyond the reach of harm?
>In your own chest, replacing your once-living heart. Occasionally you feel it pulse inside you.
>Hidden inside a rabbit, ever-elusive, burrowed somewhere in the deep woods.
>In an iron chest in the basement of your hunting lodge, where your father once kept his prized keepsakes.

>>4528198
>>In your own chest, replacing your once-living heart. Occasionally you feel it pulse inside you.

>>4528198
>Hidden inside a rabbit, ever-elusive, burrowed somewhere in the deep woods.
I genuinely wonder how they'll find this.

>>4528198
>Hidden inside a rabbit, ever-elusive, burrowed somewhere in the deep woods.
Good luck digging out an agile rabbit in the dark

>>4528198
>In an iron chest in the basement of your hunting lodge, where your father once kept his prized keepsakes.

>>4528198
>Hidden inside a rabbit, ever-elusive, burrowed somewhere in the deep woods.

>>4528198
>In an iron chest in the basement of your hunting lodge, where your father once kept his prized keepsakes

>>4528198
>Hidden inside a rabbit, ever-elusive, burrowed somewhere in the deep woods.

>>4528198

When you were brought back from the beyond, your conduit to that realm of evil, your dark heart, was hidden inside that most innocuous of woodland animals: a rabbit, that fleet-flooted trickster of the woods, burrower, runner, ever elusive, the apex of prey animals. A counterpart to the predator that you are. That rabbit was granted the same immortal life as you, suffused with the same unnatural vitality, though not with strength or endurance; and the two of you have shared these woods ever since, twin benefactors of your pact with the Great Darkness.

The lesser predators of the forest have left the rabbit alone ever since, sensing its dark patronage, not wanting to incur the wrath of the entity beyond. If one of the beasts-that-talk were to find and catch it, they could kill it as easily as an ordinary rabbit. But how would they, weak hunters that they are, ever find such a thing in these shadowed, lonesome woods?

Even if some machine or weapon could bring harm to this form you inhabit, hard and cold as stone, as long as the dark heart beats, your existence will continue, and you will be reborn once more.

Somewhere in the forest, under the mist-shrouded moon, the rabbit waits and listens. You are confident in its safety.

Turning your attention back to here and now, you see the shadow-wolves are ready to begin. You command them, and they obey. With a chorus of howls, they begin.

As you saw, the cabin is now fortified, frustrating the wolves' initial advances. But this is merely a temporary abatement. Fangs flash and tear, shadowy forms hurl themselves against barriers. Wood splits and breaks.

Soon the wolves will force their way inside, and savage those who cower within. They will not hurt the young one. The Darkness demands it. But the other two inside -- the soldier, and the second interloper -- their deaths draw near. Perhaps the wolves will be leave one alive, just long enough for you to end them with your knife. Or perhaps they will rip and mangle until nothing but torn flesh and splattered blood remains. Either way you will be satisfied. All that matters, truly, is the pain and death.

>>4529685

SARAH


The short journey from the cabin to the woodshed was tense, but uneventful. You had your shotgun raised, ready for something to come forth out of the dark: a weapon, a minion, the killer himself. But nothing came. The woodshed doors were held by a rusty padlock, but bashing it with the butt of the shotgun broke it easily enough. The doors creaked as you wrenched them open, revealing by moonlight the edges of an old workshop filled with tools, benches, barrels, and sacks. You clicked on your flashlight and swept the room with its beam, revealing the weathered but serviceable gasoline generator in the back.

"I think I can fix this," Emily had said, examining the generator's insides with the flashlight you loaned to her. She searched the nearby workbenches, until she found the right set of tools, and then had rolled up her sleeves and set to work, while you stood guard in cover near the open doorway, peering out into the yard, keeping watch over the cabin.

You thought it was a trick of the moonlight, at first. Strange shadows, moving across the grass, like clouds across the sky. Then the shadows howled, a chilling echo like the ghosts of wolves, and started tearing and biting at the barricades, trying to force their way into the cabin.

"Let's go!" you call out to Emily, in back of the woodshed. "Forget the generator, they need our help!"

"It's almost finished!" Emily calls back. "Just a few moments -- I'm almost there!"

Getting the generator back on, and with it the electric lights, would be real useful against these shadow-beasts, but waiting around, even just for a few short moments, might leave the people in the cabin vulnerable without your help.

>Stay in the woodshed and stand guard until the generator is repaired.
>Leave Emily behind, go help the people in the cabin yourself.
>Screw the generator, get Emily out of there now.

>>4529686
>>Stay in the woodshed and stand guard until the generator is repaired.

>>4529686
>Stay in the woodshed and stand guard until the generator is repaired.

I think light will help us here

>>4529686
>Leave Emily behind, go help the people in the cabin yourself.
Fuck the generator, light's not much use if everyone in the house is dead.

>>4529686
>Screw the generator, get Emily out of there now.

>>4529814
but we're fighting beings literally made of shadow and darkness, which is why I think light will be more effective than shotgun

>>4529686
>Screw the generator, get Emily out of there now.

>>4529686
>Stay in the woodshed and stand guard until the generator is repaired.

>>4529686
>Stay in the woodshed and stand guard until the generator is repaired.

>>4529686
>Stay in the woodshed and stand guard until the generator is repaired
Are the wolves close enough for us to shoot? If so, do that.

>>4529686


It's hard to tell in the moonlight, but from the look of these things, the way their edges bleed into wisps of black smoke, they're not actually solid entities. Some kind of wraith. You've dealt with this sort of thing before. Light helps against them, for whatever reason. Weakens them. If nothing else, it'll make them easier to see.

Leaving Grace and Adam to fend for themselves, even if it's not for long, doesn't feel good; but this might be your best chance to get an advantage over these things.

So you shout at Emily, "Hurry it up, then!" She shouts something back, but you're already concentrating elsewhere, quickly scanning the yard to confirm the monsters aren't coming in your direction. Their attention is taken up by the cabin, tearing at the barricades. It won't be long before they get through.

You take the opportunity to swap out your shotgun ammo. It's hard not to race through the steps, but jamming won't help anybody, least of all yourself, so you force yourself to carefully go through them all -- action bar lock, slide the forearm, cartridge stop, repeat for each slug -- and then reload the gun with the shells marked with a blue sharpie. They're filled with salt, iron filings, holy water, a grab-bag mix of materials that have an effect on supernatural entities. Should be more useful than conventional firepower against these smoke-wraiths.

Over the snarling of the beasts and the crunching of wood, you hear the generator cough and sputter to life. The electric lights flicker and turn back on, illuminating the inside of the woodshed and cabin. "Okay, we're good!" calls out Emily. She hurries up to you, takes a look outside, steps back in shock at the sight of the shadow-wolves. "What the fuck?!"

"Our monster has pets," you say.

You're taking a moment to survey the edge of the woods, looking for danger before you rush out there, but Emily says, "Come on, we have to help them!" and rushes out into the yard.

"Wait!" you shout, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her back, just as something comes whistling out of the darkness between the trees. An primitive arrow lodges itself in Emily's shoulder -- it would've hit her square in the chest if you hadn't pulled her back -- and she cries out in pain, drops to one knee. "Fuck!" You fire the shotgun off in about the direction you think the arrow came from, wasting one of your blue shells on probably nothing but leaves and trees, then drag Emily back into cover inside. You've got to get over to that cabin to help Grace and Adam, but with the asshole out there covering the approach with a goddamn bow and arrows and with Emily injured, you're not sure you can make it unless you leave her behind.

You don't know what to do.

Damn, why does this job have to be so complicated? If only you could just have a nice clean one-on-one with a monster from beyond the grave. Much better ...

>>4532128

GRACE


The cabin and front porch are lit up again, so you can finally get a good look at what's attacking you. It doesn't make them any less terrifying. Creatures of smoke and shadow, eyes glowing red, sharp fangs gnawing at the wooden barricades, their weight slamming against the front door. Adam is holding the door as best he can, his muscles straining against each impact. He's strong but can't last forever. And the window barricades are almost torn through. It's up to you to do something.

"Grace!" Adam calls out between slams. "Take Chris and run! Get out of here!"

"I'm not leaving you behind!" you say. You cast your eyes around. There's got to be something you can use to fight back against these creatures.

>Pick up Adam's hammer from the ground.
>Fire your pistol.
>Throw the camping lantern.
>Use the zippo lighter that might be magic.
>Find Chris and run.

>>4532132
>Use the zippo lighter that might be magic.
Sounds like a solid plan!

>>4532132
>Use the zippo lighter that might be magic
Fuck it

>>4532132
>>Pick up Adam's hammer from the ground.

>>4532132
>>Pick up Adam's hammer from the ground.

>>4532132
>Use the zippo lighter that might be magic.

>>4532132
>Fire your pistol.

>>4532132
>Pick up Adam's hammer from the ground

>>4532132
>Pick up Adam's hammer from the ground.

>>4532132
>Pick up Adam's hammer from the ground.

>>4532132
>Use the zippo lighter that might be magic

>>4532132

The hammer Adam was using is lying on the ground nearby, where he dropped it. You scramble to pick it up, then run to the window, where you lash out with the hammer, striking through the gaps in the window boards at the black shape tearing at them. You land a few solid hits, but you're not any sort of athlete, the blows just don't have a lot of strength behind them. You misplace a swing, and with a snarl the wolf slashes your wrist with its teeth, drawing blood; you fall back, dropping the hammer to the ground, as pain lances through your arm.

The wolf uses this opportunity, and you see the bottom half of the window boards splitting open, the wolf forcing its way through: first the head, glowing red eyes, a blood-red mouth, then the front parts of its body, black wispy shadows thrown into stark relief by the interior lights.

Adam leaves the door to grab the hammer and bludgeon at the wolf halfway through the window, but without him holding it shut the door splits apart and bursts open, and the other wolf forcing its way in. It seems partly solid in the light, but its edges still seem to coil and writhe like smoke.

Its glowing eyes rest on you, and you feel a rising panic welling up in your throat, knowing it's about to come at you, that those fangs are about to rip apart your vulnerable flesh

"Run, Grace!" Adam tackles the second wolf, knocking it to the ground. He wrestles with it, lands a blow with the hammer. "Find Chris and get him out of here --" His words are cut off with a cry of pain as the smoke-wolf sinks its teeth into his forearm.

At the same time, the the last of the window barricade splits apart, and other wolf forces its way through the window into the front room. As it lands and gets to its feet, it knocks over the camping lantern, and the spilled kerosene goes up in flames, setting fire to the cabin floorboards that quickly begins to spread through the old, dry wood of the cabin.

"Run!" Adam shouts again as he wrestles with the shadow wolf, just as the second attacks him from behind. A spray of blood jets into the air.

Vision blurring from tears, you run from the heat of the fire and the savage snarling of the wolves, and head for the back room where Chris was hiding. Maybe you can still at least save one of them.

>>4534923

Slamming open the door, you find Chris crouched in a corner. "Come on, Chris, we have to go! Follow me!"

"Where's Adam?" he asks, getting to his feet.

"There's no time, we gotta go!" You grab him by the hand and run to the back door. It's blocked by a bookshelf, and you reach out and grab the shelf to start pushing it aside, only for an impact to shake the door. You hear growling and realize there's a third wolf, on the other side, cutting off your escape route this way.

Not knowing what else to do, you pull Chris along with you as you run up the stairs to the second floor, to the one place you left unbarricaded: a window in the attic. Running past the old furniture and stacks of faded National Geographics, you reach the window, and go to pull it open. It's jammed. You frantically yank at the window, hearing the wolves downstairs that are already inside, the splintering of wood as the third one forces its way through the back door.

Finally the window opens, and you urgently get Chris to crawl through, onto the roof of the front porch. He makes it out just as one of the wolves reaches the top of the stairs, its red eyes falling on you. You squeeze and scrape through the window as it lunges towards you, and you shut the window just a moment before it reaches you, slamming against the glass. It backs up and throws itself against the window again, cracking it this time. Won't last long.

You crawl to the edge of the roof, the tiles hot under your hands from the growing fire inside. Looking down at the yard, it seems empty, for now. You take a deep breath before clambering off the side of the porch roof, hanging onto the edge, then dropping down the last few feet to the ground. You gesture for Chris to do the same, that you'll catch him, and he does; you set him down on his feet.

The heat from the fire is getting more intense, and you both move away a few feet. You watch the rising flames inside the cabin, hearing the snarling of the wolves still inside, and you wonder if smoke-monsters can burn to death or not, and if not, how long you have before they realize where you are and come after you again.

Hearing glass breaking from the second floor, you realize it doesn't matter, because you still have at least one to deal with. The shadow-wolf writhes out of the broken window and leaps to the ground, standing before you, red mouth wide open, fangs glistening. You back up, putting Chris behind you, trying to shield him with your body if nothing else.

Oh, why did you think you could do this? Why did you think you could be strong like --

>>4534925


A shotgun blast rings out. A massive hole tears itself open in the wolf's body, and the creature loses cohesion and dissipates, like smoke on the wind. "Grace!" you hear Sarah shout, see her across the yard at the entrance of the woodshed. She gestures for you to head that way. "Get over here!"

You grab Chris's hand again and are about to run in that direction, but something embeds itself in the grass at your feet. An arrow. A second arrow whistles through the air, right past your ear. You realize that, with direction those are coming from, you'll be fully exposed the whole way to the woodshed; there's no way you can make it; so instead you head the other way, into the shelter of the trees. Another arrow lands in a tree trunk right by your head, just as you crash into the underbrush.

Thorns scratch at your arms and legs as you struggle forwards. You almost immediately lose any sense of direction. But the trees and shadows provide a temporary shelter, and the arrows have stopped coming. All you can do is keep moving forward, into the darkness.

>>4534929

HUNTER


From your position at the edge of the woods, you survey the burning cabin, lighting the yard up in orange and long dark shadows. The girl and the boy have escaped, for the moment. But with their shelter aflame, they had no choice but to enter the dark woods. Your territory. They will not last long when you choose to begin the hunt.

The wolves have perished; two in the flames, a third by the weapon of the stronger interloper, the fighter. But they have done their duty. The soldier is dead. The shelter is aflame. That leaves only the scholar, wounded by your arrow; the virgin child; and the two interlopers.

They are separated now, and you consider how best to dispatch those who remain. You could pursue the weaker interloper and the child into the woods, where you could easily dispatch them. But it might be best to deal with the fighter now, while you have her trapped and isolated, trying to defend a wounded companion.

>Pursue with all speed into the woods, wary of your prey pulling away or reaching shelter.
>Go carefully into the woods, tracking, wary of your prey hiding or doubling back.
>Stay and lay siege to the woodshed.
>Stay and attack the woodshed head-on.

>>4534930
>>Go carefully into the woods, tracking, wary of your prey hiding or doubling back.

>>4534930
>>Stay and attack the woodshed head-on.

>>4534930
>Go carefully into the woods, tracking, wary of your prey hiding or doubling back

>>4534930
>Stay and attack the woodshed head-on.

>>4534930
>Pursue with all speed into the woods, wary of your prey pulling away or reaching shelter.

>>4534930
>Stay and attack the woodshed head-on.

File: HeadInHandsSad.jpg (35 KB, 500x333)

35 KB JPG

>>4534930
>Go carefully into the woods, tracking, wary of your prey hiding or doubling back.
Why the fuck did you guys vote to swing a hammer instead of shooting or using the lighter?

>>4534930
>Stay and attack the woodshed head-on.

>>4534930
>Stay and attack the woodshed head-on.

>>4534930

With the shelter aflame, and the weak ones escaping into the woods, your work is close to complete. They will not be difficult to track down later: talking beasts leave all kinds of markers along their path in the woods. You have all the time in the world to hunt them down and finish them off at your pleasure. The only challenge that remains ahead of you now is dealing with the stronger interloper. The fighter. She has retreated to the woodshed, along with the one you injured earlier with an arrow. You are enjoying this challenge against worthy prey.

You can feel the shadow wolves perishing inside the cabin, burning up, but they are no longer needed. They have done their work well, and you thank the Great Darkness for its boons. You will finish the rest of this hunt yourself.

Unstringing your bow and slinging it over your shoulder, you pick up your axe, tightening your grip on its solid oak handle, and move silently towards the woodshed, glorifying in anticipation of the kill.

>>4538248

SARAH


Taking shelter just to the side of the woodshed doorway, where you can look outside from hiding, you watch the yard carefully. Previously lit only by moonlight in pale mist, it now glows brightly in orange and yellow, as the fire grows inside the cabin, quickly consuming the old, dry wood. You're prepared to shoot any more of those smoke-wolves that get out, but none come. Maybe they burned up in there.

There's no warning sound, no twig snapping or leaf rustling. Just a sudden movement in the corner of your eye, a glimmer of moonlight on metal. You don't think, just react, leaning backwards like a boxer dodging a punch; the sharp blade of a two-handed axe whistles through the space you just left, embedding itself into the doorframe with a burst of splintered wood. You take a couple steps back, trying to control your breathing and your aim, readying your shotgun.

The axe is wrenched free of the doorframe. You get a good look at him for the first as he steps out, silhouetted in the open door against the light of the burning house, a huge, muscular shadow, part man, part beast. A rusted, corroded bear trap fastened around his throat. Antlers rise high from the withered, blood-stained deer head. Through its empty sockets you can see the pale, dead eyes of what was once a man, staring down at you. The Hunter.

With an ear-splitting sound in the cramped cabin, you fire the shotgun. You see it impact, shredding some of the tattered clothes and skins the Hunter wears on his chest, but with almost no effect on the form beneath. You curse, pump the slide, fire again, with the same result. The blue shells were useful against the smoke-wolves, but they don't do enough against this thing. It's too solid.

The Hunter steps into the woodshed. Emily is crouched down to the side of the door, holding the hand from her uninjured arm over her mouth, trying to stop herself from screaming. He either doesn't hear her, or doesn't care. He raises the axe, ready to swing at you again, and you throw yourself backwards onto the ground, landing on your back, just barely dodging the powerful strike that would have cut as deep as your spine. Still with the shotgun in hand, you fire from the ground, using up the last of the blue shells for what they're worth, then scramble away, using a tool cart to pull yourself up to your feet, then throwing it down to the ground with a clatter of metal tools to put an obstacle between you and the creature.

>>4538250


The hunter advances. His antlers brush the light bulb hanging from the ceiling, sending it swinging, and the steady lighting transforms into a crazy see-sawing of light and shadow, back and forth, lighting up one side of the monster then the other.

Fingers clumsy with dread you yank at the slugs loaded on your ammo belt, fumble one into the chamber, raise the shotgun and fire. More impact, enough to make him stagger. Not enough to kill him. Not even enough to stop him coming at you.

Stepping across the overturned tool cart, the Hunter raises the axe for a overhead blow with two hands. You desperately parry with the shotgun, turning the strike aside, but the power behind it knocks the gun out of your hands, sending it flying off into the darkness somewhere in the corner of the woodshed.

The Hunter pulls the axe back again, readying another swing, but thinking quickly you tug the small knife out of your sleeve and throw it with all you've got. His head and throat are protected by the dear head and the bear trap, so you aim for the shoulder. It lands solidly, embedding itself in the cold flesh, and you hear him grunt, lower the axe to pause and examine the knife handle now sticking out of his shoulder. You've bought yourself another moment, but you need to do something drastic, and fast, even if it's just to buy time.

Choose 2:
>Shout at Emily to get out of there.
>Find the shotgun. (Spend both choices to also load and fire it)
>Use the rest of your knives.
>Swing away with the baseball bat.
>Grab something off the workbench, whatever comes to hand first. (Spend both choices to look for something big, that packs a proper kick)

>>4538251
>>Find the shotgun. (Spend both choices to also load and fire it)
load and fire.

>>4538251
>Shout at Emily to get out of there.
>Swing away with the baseball bat.

>>4538251
>Use the rest of your knives.
Knife seems to work

>>4538509
oh and baseball bat, why not

>>4538251
>>Use the rest of your knives.
>>Swing away with the baseball bat.

>>4538251
>>Use the rest of your knives.
>>Swing away with the baseball bat.

>>4538251
>Use the rest of your knives
>Swing away with the baseball bat
I do have to ask why telling Emily to leave consumes an action here. Isn't it something we could do while fighting?

>>4538251


The knives seem to be working, so you keep throwing them: first the one from your underarm sheath, then the one from your boot, both of which stick the monster in the chest. It doesn't stop him, but it does slow him down.

You become aware of a stinging sensation in your cheek, and pause to touch your face. Your fingers come away red, and you realize in a dim abstract sense that you're bleeding, that the initial surprise attack actually cut you, and you came a hair's breadth from having your head split apart with an axe. No time to think about it.

You use the few moments you gained from throwing your knives to unstrap your faithful sidekick: Young Betsy, a aluminum baseball bat, customized with a hard metal center drilled through, stained with the blood of several monsters. Your fingers curl around the taped-up grip, feeling the familiar weight and heft of the weapon. You used to swing one of these every day for hours after school, improving your swing speed and arm strength. Back then, all you were thinking about was making it to the state championship. Now you've got more pressing matters: specifically, the huge man with antlers about to swing an axe at you.

The hunter hasn't bothered to take out your knives or anything, solely focused on you. He swings the big two-handed axe horizontally; you judge the distance and step backwards, just out of range, the sharp heavy blade whistling through the air right where your torso was a moment ago.

Stepping forward, you wind up and give the monster your best home run swing, right to the chest, like you're knocking a high fastball out of the park. A solid thwack, a jarring shake running down your arms. He staggers, but quickly recovers, comes back for another axe swing. You duck under it, launch yourself back up with an uppercut swing that cracks him in the chin. He raises the axe for an overhead blow; you step to the side, and the axe hits the table in the center instead, splitting it apart in one hit.

You swing again, but he lets go of the axe with one hand and reaches out to grab the bat, just above your own hold, before the blow lands; you try to twist and wrench it free, but that strength is incredible, like it's caught in a vise; you let go with one hand to grab the last knife from your belt and plunge it into the hand holding the bat, then twist and rip, forcing him to let go; then rearing back you put everything you've got into one last big swing, clobbering him so hard he finally staggers, sways, and falls to the ground.

Not wasting any time, you get on top of him, yank one of your knives free from his stomach, put your other hand on the butt, and drive the knife deep into his heart. You hear a hissing exhalation of breath ... and the monster lies still.

>>4539906


Gasping for breath, you roll off the monster, putting a hand to your chest to feel your heart pounding. Reminding yourself that you're still alive. You don't care to count how many times that axe blade missed you by an inch or less. Doesn't matter, you tell yourself. You're still alive. Still here.

"You got him ..." Emily has struggled to her feet. The arrow's still sticking out of her shoulder. "He's dead!"

You sigh. "Sorry to say it, but he's not dead. Not yet."

"What do you mean?" Emily asks, a rising note of panic in her voice. "You just stabbed him in the heart!"

"Yeah ..." You look down at the still form of the Hunter. If you had killed him for real, there would be a big explosion of dark energy. That didn't happen. Which means -- "He was keeping his heart somewhere else. Outside his body. Until we find it down and destroy it, he'll keep coming back. All we've bought ourselves is time." You gesture to her shoulder. "Leave the arrow in. If you pull it out you'll start bleeding worse. Look for something to tie or tape it in place, until we can see to it properly. Then we can try to find his heart."

"Find his heart ... how are we going to do that?"

"I don't know."

>>4539909

GRACE


The forest is almost pitch-black, with only a crescent moon hidden behind mist to light your way. More than once you stumble over roots or small gulleys, or find yourself torn at by thorns and branches. You try to keep quiet, but it's impossible like this. All you can do is keep going. Try to make distance. And keep Chris with you. Holding onto his hand, you stay in front, trying to take the brunt of the scratches.

Once you've made a good amount of distance from the burning cabin, you pause and listen carefully. You can't hear anything coming after you -- not that you would necessarily hear the monster, you didn't before -- but you judge it safe enough to light one of your emergency flares. Twisting off the cap and striking at it like Sarah showed you, it takes you a few times, but eventually the flare sparks to life, lighting up the forest around you in darkroom red and dark shadow.

"Are you all right?" you ask Chris. Looking him over in the light of the flare, you can see his clothes are dirty and scratched up, but he seems unharmed.

The boy nods. "I told you," he says in a quiet voice. "I saw the antler man. He was real."

"Yes," you say, not knowing what else to say. "He was." You remember now. The boy said he saw a horned beast in his dream, with fangs dripping blood ...

Your own vague memories materalize, coalesce, and you remember your own dream. The motel. It seems like it happened a hundred years ago, not twenty-four hours. But you remember now. You saw a man with antlers and fangs dripping blood, in the dark woods, just like Chris described.

Could you and this boy have both sensed the Hunter in your dreams? It seems crazy, but not any crazier than being attacked by undead monster men who can summon smoke-wolves.

"Do you hear it?" Chris asks.

"Hear what?"

"I'm not sure. It's like--" The boy opens and closes his hand in a fist, rhythmically. "It's like a drumbeat. Or--"

"Or a heart," you finish for him. You can hear it, if you concentrate. If you open yourself. A pattern. A cadence. A pulse.

What was it Sarah said? The monsters have a weakness. Something you can destroy to kill them for good. A dark heart.

You know, with a sudden clear certainty, what it is that you can hear. It's the Hunter's heart, coming from somewhere in the deep woods.

You don't understand what it is that you've been tapping into. But you've felt it several times now. In Rhodes' house, when he looked inside you. At the edge of the woods, when you found the monster's bone traps. And now. Is it magic? Some kind of sixth sense? You don't know. But whatever it is, it might be the answer.

It might be what you need to help Sarah.

Follow the heartbeat by:
>Letting the darkness in, but not too much.
>Letting the darkness in, all the way.
And:
>Working with Chris, who seems to have his own strange attunement.
>Doing it alone. You can't expose him to danger.

>>4539910
>Letting the darkness in, but not too much.
>Working with Chris, who seems to have his own strange attunement.

>>4539910
>Letting the darkness in, but not too much.
>Doing it alone. You can't expose him to danger.

>>4539910
>>Letting the darkness in, but not too much.
>>Doing it alone. You can't expose him to danger.

>>4539910
>Letting the darkness in, but not too much.
>Doing it alone. You can't expose him to danger.

>>4539910
>Letting the darkness in, all the way.
>Doing it alone. You can't expose him to danger.

>>4539910
>>Letting the darkness in, all the way.
>Doing it alone. You can't expose him to danger.

>>4539910
>Letting the darkness in, but not too much.
>Working with Chris, who seems to have his own strange attunement.

>>4539910
>Letting the darkness in, but not too much.
>Doing it alone. You can't expose him to danger.

>>4539910


There is power out there. In that space, on the other reality. But you're afraid. Afraid of what touching it, and letting it touch you in return, might do to you. Afraid that not all of you would make it back. You resolve to only let yourself open a little ways. It'll be like dipping your toe into the water to test how cold it is, you tell yourself. No big deal, right?

Chris seems to have his own strange attunement to that world. He saw the Hunter in his dreams, like you did. Briefly, you consider trying to work together with him on this, then decide against it. Too dangerous to expose a kid to -- to whatever it is that you're tuning into.

You'll just have to do it yourself. But without opening yourself too far. Yeah, that should be easy, right? Oh, Grace, what are you doing?

Closing your eyes, you go inside yourself. You try to find that place you've been to before, when you saw the hunter in your dreams, when you reached out through the bone totems to sense his mind.

Back home in Greendale, your dad was a ham radio enthusiast. He had this big desk, out in the shed, with all kinds of weird equipment you didn't know the names of, covered in dials, buttons, wires, and gauges. When you were little, you used to go out there and watch him use it, twisting the knobs back and forth, fiddling with everything until it was just right. Empty static interspersed with snatches of music or speech, more and more as he honed in on the frequency he was searching for, until he finally he found just the right adjustment, and the white noise itransformed into clarity, and he could listen to something from miles away.

You imagine this as something like that. Inside your head, you envision a radio, a big machine with knobs and dials. And you start turning them. Your ears are filling with static, a white noise scratching and hissing. You don't know if it's imagined or not. It reaches a higher and higher intensity, denser, louder, as you close in on what you're searching for. Slowly you're getting closer and closer to something.

There it is.

A heartbeat.

All you'd have to do to zero in on it is to turn that knob all the way. But your earlier fear comes back. What else would you hear, if you went all the way? What else would hear you?

You'll just have to stay here, halfway, on the edge between the hissing and the heartbeat, and hope it's enough to find the source. To find it before the Hunter finds you.

"Come on," you say to Chris. "Follow me."

"Where are we going?" he asks.

"We're going to find--" what? You don't even know. "A way out of this mess." Holding your flare high, you lead the way, deeper the woods.

>>4542381

HUNTER


Drifting in languor, as though floating on a vast, dark, empty sea, late at night. The closest thing you've had to sleep since you returned.

This is the place you passed through twice before. Once when you died, and again when you were sent back. This is the place between. On one side, the living world; on the other, the world of the dead and the damned.

This is where it lives. The Great Darkness.

You don't know if it was born here, or travelled here from some other place. All you know is that it called to you from here, when you died. That it offered you a pact, which you accepted. That it brought you back, and you passed through that realm and found yourself back here, in the world of living things.

It knows you are here. You can feel it taking notice of your presence, its eyes ever-watchful. Movement of vast shapes, like the skittering legs of a thousand spiders, like a whale passing in the depths, like fog parting to reveal the mountains.

It is angry.

You are failing. The ritual is not complete. You understand that these interloper-things have impeded its plans before, that you are not the first, that it is tired of its servants falling to a mere thing of flesh and blood. A human. A girl.

She was supposed to be a sacrifice. She escaped. Ever since she has thwarted the Great Darkness and its plans. Not wholly. Just enough. Enough to earn its ire.

It had hoped that you would be stronger, that you would succeed where others have failed. You have not.

The night is not over, you tell the Darkness. My heart still beats, the one you gave me, and I hid inside a rabbit so it might elude pursuers forever. Send me back.

Grant me more power. Fill me with your might. Make me your weapon, you say to the Darkness. I will hunt and kill. I will take their trophies. I will mount her head as the one who tried and failed to fight against you. Then you will see I am the greatest of your servants.

You ask for the blessing of:
>Speed
>Strength
>Shadow

>>4542383
>Speed
Hunt Grace down first, drive the girl to despair

>>4542383
>Shadow

>>4542383
>Strength

>>4542383
>Speed

>>4542383
>Speed

>>4542383
>Strength

>>4542383
>Shadow

>>4542383

Speed. You must be swift and deadly, to hunt your prey wherever it goes, to chase it down no matter how quickly or skillfully it runs. You must be as fast as the flooding river, as the raging wind, as the flash of lightning.

Fine, the Darkness says. But you must not fail me again. Now prepare yourself. This will hurt.

Fangs begin to tear at you, ripping and biting at your flesh, and for the first time since your rebirth you feel the white-hot burning of pain. They are not tearing parts of you away, you realize through the pain. Each bite does not take away, but adds, alters, reshapes. They are changing you, scuplting you, and you feel a rush of strength and triumph even as the agony becomes overbearing, and you pass beyond thought ...

Some time later, you awaken, having passed once more through the doorway into the waking world. You are still in the woodshed, illuminated by a single lightbulb overhead. The girl who wounded you is nowhere to be seen or heard.

You move your limbs and realize you have changed. You have become more than you were. So much more.

Preparing to hunt once again, you extend your senses beyond the shed, hearing, smelling, tasting. Both of the interlopers have been wounded, one by the wolves you summoned, the other by your axe. They are blood-bound to you. It is easy to pick up their scent once more.

Your first thought is for the girl who wounded you. She is nearby. But to be thorough, you track the other girl as well, to monitor her location. And you realize with a shock that she is close to that pulse you always feel at a distance. Your heart.

She is hunting the rabbit. And she is close.

For the first time since you passed beyond life, you feel it.

Fear. The fear of true death.

Rising to your feet, break through the flimsy structure of the woodshed door, barely a hinderance to your new form, wood and iron splintering under your weight. You sniff the still night air, pinpointing her location, then dash off into the woods, the cold earth racing by under your feet. The sensation of running on your new legs is exhilarating. There is some distance to cover, but with your newfound speed, you will easily catch up to them.

You will find the girl. You will keep your heart safe. Then you will find the one who wounded you, and make of her a sacrifice. An offering to the Great Darkness, spilling the blood of its enemy, in return for the blessing of your new form. Her head will be mounted on your trophy wall. And the woods will once more be your solitary hunting grounds. All will be well.

>>4545851

GRACE


Searching for the pulse has been difficult. You resolved to go it alone, to avoid putting Chris into any danger, and also to avoid opening yourself completely, only letting in the darkness a small bit, like the opposite of light shining under the bottom of a doorway. This seems to have kept you both safe from any malign influence. But it's also interfering with your ability to use this newfound ability to its fullest extent.

You've ended up stumbling around in the woods for some time now, as marked by the use of your flares. Each lasts for 15 minutes, and you've already used two out of the four you started with. You're about halfway through the third flare now, and you're trying not to think about what might happen if you ran out of them, lost completely in the dark woods without a light source.

Try to stay focused, you tell yourself. Find the pulse. It's got to be what Sarah talked about: the monster's dark heart, the source of its power. If you can find it and destroy it, that should take it down for good.

"Do you hear that?" Chris asks, looking back in the direction you came from.

You pause and listen. It sounds like wood snapping repeatedly, as well as the dull thud of impacts on the ground. As though something huge were running through the woods, breaking branches as it went. Getting louder, closer, all too quickly.

"It's him," Chris says. "But worse. So much worse."

"Run!" you say to Chris, grabbing his hand and pulling him along. Your instincts scream at you to run in the opposite direction of the oncoming sounds, but you can still hear the pulse through your fear, and you force yourself to run in that direction instead. You know that the only way to keep yourself safe, to end this, is to find the heart and destroy it before he finds you.

Too late.

>>4545854


A monstrous shape crashes through the woods, splintering branches, ripping apart underbrush. A wild animal, a beast, running on four legs, low to the ground. It slows as it enters the light of your flare, and you see it clearly in the red glow. It's the creature from your dreams, brought to life, a grotesque and horrifying creation. The size of a grizzly bear. The shape of a wolf, mouth open, fangs bared. The flesh around the eyes is sunken and shriveled, giving the face a skull-like appearance. Jagged antlers reach towards the sky.

You understand on some basic gut level that Chris was right, that this is the Hunter, that he has transformed outwardly into what he already was on the inside. A beast of prey.

You lock eyes with the beast across the intervening space, and suddenly you see something else. You are somewhere else.

A wooden cabin. Men around you, seen from a low perspective. You're just a child, you realize. One of the men -- your father -- is in trouble. The other men are angry. They want something from him, which he won't give to them. So instead they hurt him. Gunshots go off, so loud they hurt your ears. Your father falls. Dead. Then the men turn towards you, grab you, hold you down. You're so small. You can't do anything to stop them. One of them places a knife in your mouth, cold and sharp, and you feel a burning hot pain as your tongue is cut off. Then another man comes forward, holding a deer head, your father's prize trophy, and the world goes dark as the head is lowered overtop your own ...

You snap back to reality, and you know somehow that you saw what created this thing. That the savage beast in front of you was once just a boy in pain.

The creature darts forward with lightning speed, and before you have a chance to react, swipes with its forepaw, razor-sharp claws shredding the bottom of your shirt and drawing blood-red lines across your stomach. The pain hits a moment afterwards, a sharp lance of agony. The weight of the blow causes you to stumble backwards; the back of your heel hits a tree root, and you fall back onto the ground, dropping the flare. Lit up from below in the red glare, the beast steps forward, its fanged mouth opening wide. You scramble backwards through the dirt, but it's no good, the thing is so much faster than you.

>>4545855


A memory flashes into your mind. The lighter.

"Keep it close to you," you remember Rhodes saying. "When in dire need, use the flame."

You didn't know what he meant at the time, exactly. But this sure as hell counts as dire need.

Wresting the lighter from your inside pocket, you flip it open and hold it up in front of you. You get the feeling Sarah might toss off some kind of one-liner here, like you'd see in a movie, but after seeing that vision you feel some shred of sympathy for the monster than was once a boy.

You strike the spark.

A huge fireball shoots out from the lighter, engulfing the beast in flame. The air immediately fills with an ear-splitting howl, the sickening smell of burning fur and flesh. The beast is ignited, the fire climbing over its face and back, spreading to the nearby branches.

The lighter is red hot, and you almost drop it from the stinging pain, but you manage to tuck it back inside your pocket and get to your feet. "Come on," you say to Chris, and grab his hand with your soil-covered own. "That bought us some time, but we have to hurry."

Your last flare is almost burned through by the time you find it. You weren't sure what you were expecting, but this definitely wasn't it: a rabbit, sitting upright on its hind legs, perched on a flat stone in the midst of a small clearing. It's looking right at you. A normal rabbit, you're pretty sure, would have dashed away the moment a pair of bedraggled humans came noisily blundering through the woods towards it. But it's sitting perfectly still, just watching you, an uncanny awareness in its eyes.

You reach out to it through that other space, confirming what you're already thinking. Yes. The pulse emanates from inside the rabbit. There's some kind of connection between this animal and the Hunter. You remember a folk tale you heard long ago: a man who hid his soul in a needle, inside of an egg, inside of a duck, inside of a rabbit. You're not sure about the egg and duck parts, but it seems to you like this rabbit does, in fact, hold the Hunter's soul, or whatever passes for such a thing for a monster like this.

Under other circumstances you'd feel bad about killing a defenseless animal like this, but as they say, desperate times call for desperate measures.

You suddenly become aware that the stench of burned fur has once again filled your nostrils; you hear a loud growling from behind you, and your breath seizes in your throat. Slowly turning your head, you see the Hunter has caught up with you. The fur on its shoulders and upper arms is gone, leaving pale, burn-scarred flesh exposed in its absence. The creature is clearly wounded from the way it moves. The lighter's fireball damaged it. But it wasn't enough.

>>4545856

Shit.

After all this, you really are going to die out here in the dark woods. So much for your parents' hopes and dreams about a career, a nice life, a family. You threw it all away on a stupid idea, putting yourself into a terrible, dangerous situation you had no skills to handle.

At least, you hope, you helped Sarah before you died. You did something to repay your debt. That will have to count for something.

You close your eyes.

An ear-splitting bang rings out through the clearing. You open your eyes to see the monster, temporarily stunned. Another bang, then a third. The monster staggers, and behind it, you see Sarah. "Miss me?" she calls out, pumping the shotgun again, readying another shell. The monster roars, turns to face her, eats a fourth shotgun shell directly to the face. That still only slows it down. It lunges forward, swiping with its huge claws; Sarah blocks it with the shotgun, grunting at the impact. "Get out of here!" she calls out. "I'll keep it busy!"

She doesn't know about the heart, you realize. But you do. There's only one chance, using the distraction she's bought you.

Drawing the gun she got for you, the small 9mm pistol, you turn back to the rabbit. It hasn't moved, still standing there on the stone, watching you. Almost like it's waiting for you.

You aim carefully, down the sights, just like Sarah taught you. Take a deep breath, let out half of it. Squeeze the trigger.

Bang.

The recoil jars your arms, but you practised before, and you're ready for it. You keep firing, struggling to keep the gun level between each shot, but some of them hit your target, enough to turn the rabbit's torso into a bloody mess. Then you hit it.

You've already seen this once, when you and Sarah killed the Nurse together, so you're hoping to be prepared for it; but nothing could steel you for the terrible, screaming howl that rips the air, like space itself is being torn apart and the void bleeding in, a darkness splitting apart existence itself. Wind tugs at your clothes, the scream fills your eyes, the dark bores into your eyes like blinding light. Every one of your senses is blasted, overloaded. All you can do is endure.

Finally, it fades. You open your eyes to see the moonlit forest, a faint breeze stirring the leaves of the trees above.

Turning, you look where the monster once stood, and see nothing but smoke and ash, fading away to nothing.

Sarah comes towards you, one arm hanging loose at her sides; dislocated shoulder, maybe, from blocking the powerful strike of that beast. "Nice work," she says with a lopsided grin. "I figured you'd be useful for something. Turns out I was right."

You feel so overwhelmed with emotion and fading adrenaline, your hands shaking, all you can do is:

>Hug her.
>Cry
>Play it off with a joke

>>4545857
>Hug her.

>>4545857
>>Hug her.

>>4545857
>Cry

>>4545857
>Hug her.

>>4545857
>Cry
That feels rushed

hug+cry then, I think it can be combined

>>4545857
>Play it off with a joke

>>4546503
Yeah, but I couldn't think of any way to drag it out that I liked.

>>4545857
>Cry

>>4545857

You throw your arms around Sarah, feeling tears stinging your eyes. All that fear you were suppressing is hitting you all at once, the adrenaline fading away and leaving your limbs feeling like jelly. "Oh god, I was so scared ..."

"Hey, it's all right," Sarah says. "You're fine. You made it." She returns the hug, a quick squeeze, then steps back, uses her thumb to wipe a tear from your face, looks you up and down. She sees the bottom of your shirt torn up, and the bloody slash marks underneath, and her face turns to concern. "Wait, are you all right? Are you hurt?" She disentangles herself from your arms to take out some bandages from her first aid kit and.

You laugh, an ugly snort choking on tears. "J-just scratched up." Your hands are covered in small red scratches from thornbushes, and the place where the beast clawed you stings badly, but the pain is overwhelmed by gratitude at being safe, at having defeated the monster.

Sarah looks over at Chris. "How about you, kiddo? Grace take care of you all right?"

The shy kid smiles and gives a thumbs-up.

You've been so caught up in the moment ever since things got intense, but it all comes flooding back to you now, the events of the past few hours, all the choices you made. "Sarah, I -- I'm sorry, I tried my best, but I didn't -- I couldn't --"

"Hey, enough of that," Sarah says. "You're still alive, and so is the kid. We killed the monster, and we're walking away. I call that a win."

"Did you get a treasure?" asks Chris.

Sarah turns to him with a confused look. "Huh?"

"In a game, sometimes when you kill the monster, you get a treasure."

Sarah laughs. "Yeah, I wish. That would be something, wouldn't it? I'd be a lot more enthusiastic about all this if I got gold coins or something every time I finish one of these guys off." She ruffles the kid's hair. "All right, let's get the hell out of here. I was worried for a moment about being lost, but it turns out we can just follow the trail of destruction back to the cabin. Thanks, rampaging monster."

>>4551357


The light of dawn has brightened the cloudy sky to a pale grey by the time you get back to your car. There's a pay phone there where Emily calls the state police. She says she'll handle talking to them, give them the best explanation she can for what happened in the woods last night without mentioning the two of you, to keep you from getting caught up in things. "It's the least I can do," she says. Her injured arm hangs in a makeshift sling; she uses the other arm to awkwardly shake hands with you and Sarah. "Thank you for everything."

You get a flash of memory: Adam tackling a smoke-wolf to save you, shouting at you to run, his blood hitting the wall. You don't feel like much of a hero. "I'm sorry about Adam," is all you can think of to say.

Emily's face tightens for a moment. Sadness, or blame? "I'm sure you did everything you could," she says.

You get in the car. Sarah starts it up, starts driving. You look out the back window to see Chris waving goodbye, Emily next to him with her good hand on his shoulder. Then the car pulls out of the parking lot

"So," Sarah says. "Your first official outing as a slasher killer is a success. How do you feel?"

"Like shit," you admit. "I can't stop thinking about Adam."

"You can't save everyone," Sarah says. "I had to get used to that, too. I had this idea that I could show up riding my white horse, be the big hero, and that means everyone would be safe. It doesn't. I count it as a victory when I'm able to save one or two people. And even if I can't, well, there's the people in the future. Some other group of campers or hikers would have showed up in these woods later in the summer, or next year, and then another group the year after that, and so on. We put a stop to the cycle. That's what's important."

"Yeah, but -- he died because of me. If I had done something else, made a different choice, maybe he would still be alive."

"Maybe," Sarah says.

"What, that's your consolation? I say I think someone's dead because of me, and you say "maybe"?

"I'm not a psychologist or counselor," Sarah says. "Yeah, maybe he's dead because you made the wrong choice. Or maybe something else would have happened, and he would have died anyway. Or you'd both be dead. You can't know for sure. And, more importantly, you can't change what's happened." She drums the steering wheel with her fingers ."You think I never fucked up and had somebody killed? I fuck up all the time, Grace. I do my best, but people still die. I'm just one person, and I'm fighting against actual monsters, vengeful killers brought back from the grave with weird fucking powers, all kinds of spooky shit. I don't always win. Sometimes I can barely even survive. What am I going to do about it? In the end there's only two choices. I can quit, or I can try to learn from it and keep going."

>>4551362


You look at Sarah, at the stony resolve on her face. "This is what you meant earlier," you say, thinking about the conversation you had in the car yesterday. "About how you have to just keep moving forward."

"You got it," Sarah says. "If you keep going with this, that's how it is. You're going to have blood on your hands. People you could have saved, but didn't. Choices you could have made, but didn't. What matters is how you deal with it. If you let it beat you, or if you keep going." She glances over at you, then looks back at the road. "Sorry if that sounds harsh. Like I said. I'm no shrink. This is the best advice I got." A pause, then she adds, "If it's any consolation, I think you did good out there."

"Huh?" You're not sure how you would grade your own performance, but it probably wouldn't be good. "Really?"

"For your first time? Definitely. You should have seen me the first time I went out. I was such a bundle of nerves. I'm still surprised I got anything accomplished at all." She glances over at you again, this time with a grin. "Of course, you had me as your senior, so it's not surprising you did well. I'm great at lots of things, so it makes sense I'd be a great mentor too."

You smile despite yourself. Maybe you are starting to feel a little better, whether or not Sarah's unorthodox pep talk is responsible. "Okay, chief. Where to next?"

"Well, I have to call Rhodes and let him know the job was a success. He might have somewhere else for us to go, another monster for us to deal with. But if not?" She shrugs. "Wherever the road takes us."

The car travels onward, the highway stretching out in front of you.

>>4551364

RHODES


"I see," you say into the phone. You are in your bookshelf-lined study, listening to the latest report from one of your field agents. "Let me be the first to congratulate you on another successful hunt."

"Thanks," Sarah says. "From the sound of it, that gizmo you gave Grace really came in handy. She figured out a few things along the way, too. Guess she really is better at the mumbo-jumbo side of things than I am."

"That would hardly be difficult," you say. "Considering your lack of aptitude for the mystical arts. Still. It is good to know my hunch was correct. Tell your friend that, if she wishes further tutoring, I would be happy to provide my assistance."

"Yeah, you probably just want an excuse to have a barely legal teenage girl hanging around your mansion," Sarah says. "Any word on the next job?"

"None for now," you say, choosing to ignore her barb. "But with Samhain approaching, I expect it won't be long. Stay ready."

"Always do. Talk to you later, Rhodey." Sarah hangs up, and you look down at the handset with mild disgust as you place it back on the receiver. Conversing with that girl is always a trial.

You'd gladly wash your hands of her, if she didn't have such a talent for combat against the dark ones. And with her new companion possessing the gifts she does -- yes. The two of them might yet shape themselves into a truly formidable duo. For good or ill. The question is whether they have the time to do so.

You glance once more over the papers and books spread across your mahogany desk. Notes on arcane symbols, astrological convergences, auspices and haruspices. You have been deep in study for several weeks now, emerging only to gather reports on the latest intelligence, and to dispatch your agents on the more urgent matters.

The results of your research have been inconclusive. And yet you can't help but feel a certain looming dread about it all. Your instincts have proven right in the past, and you have learned to listen to them. This time they are telling you that something big is on the horizon. Something dangerous. The summer nears its end, and the great conjunction, Samhain, is nearly at hand. Every year it is perilous for your field agents, as the aetheric walls grow thin, and the number and power of umbral spirits sharply increases. But you have reason to believe that this year's conjuction may be of an even greater scale and intensity than usual.

>>4551369

A phone rings again.

There are two phones on your desk. One of them, the one you just used to talk to Sarah, is a perfectly ordinary phone connected to the mundane network of lines that criss-cross the country.

This is the other phone.

You pick it up, saying, "I've been expecting to hear from you."

A query.

"No."

Another query, more insistent this time.

"They will not be ready," you say, thinking of Sarah and her new companion, still so ingenuous. "But you are right. We may have no choice. I will tell them. What can you do on your end?"

A vague reply. An indication of other concerns.

"I hope you are not abdicating your responsibility in this."

A reassurance of resolve.

"I see. Any help you can offer will be appreciated." You glance down at the calender on your desk. "We still have some time. I will try to prepare them as best as I can. As should you."

A warning of future dangers. A bidding of farewell.

"Until then." You hang up the phone.

Something warm stings your nostril, and you reach up to touch your face, your fingers coming away red. You use a handkerchief to wipe the blood from your nose, annoyed at the onset of a headache. Using that phone always has odd resonance effects.

So, you think, leaning back in your chair. The pieces are in motion. All that is left is for the players to make their moves. Or perhaps, for the pieces to realize they are part of a game. However events unfold, this should certainly prove to be a most interesting year.

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Thanks for playing Slasher Killer. See you next Samhain.