He tripped over a stump and hit the ground as his phone flew through the air ahead of him. Damn. He rubbed his throbbing shin until he regained his bearings. He couldn’t see anything around him, the forested surroundings completely foreign to a city kid like him. He scanned left and right before noticing the glowing orb of his phone laying against a tree well outside his reach. He tried to shake the feeling that he’d landed in a writhing mass of maggots. He stood and frantically brushed the pine needles from his clothing.

Slowly, deliberately, and with more than a little fear, he walked forward with his arms stretched out in front of him, sliding his feet on the forest floor as though skiing cross-country. He felt a tree in front of him. Nervously, he felt up and down its skinny trunk and navigated himself around it. His feet ran up against a bush. He crouched down to ascertain its exact shape by touch before slowly stepping over it, still half expecting a bottomless pit to swallow him on the other side. His foot touched solid ground and he breathed a sigh of relief. He saw the glowing rectangle directly in front of him and scooped down to pick it up.

The phone’s screen shone brilliantly, bathing everything around it in light, the AR function now almost useless. It’d shone like this for his entire half-hour trek through the forest, but he knew he was near his destination now. He lifted his eyes from his phone and looked ahead. There, in front of him, illuminated only by the light of his handheld screen, lay a clearing.

The Behemoth panted. He lunged forward and tried to run, believing his will would carry him to the finish line. He tripped over a large root and flew again, this time sliding face first into the wet earth.

The Behemoth felt a light rain on the back of his head as he inventoried the damage. His throbbing shin hurt pretty badly once again, and his torso and legs were soaked, but he could still breathe. He’d lost his phone a second time. He pulled himself up and blinked a few times before regaining his vision.

And then he saw it.

His phone lay in the mud many steps ahead of him, but something else grabbed his attention. Looming over the top of his screen like an alien obelisk, bathed in the orange glow, lay a giant rock pile arranged in the shape of a circle. The Thunderbird’s Nest. The young man ran toward the nest and launched a video chat as soon as he reached his phone. Alpha and the other Clan:LESS leaders answered the call. The rain picked up as the connection locked in.

“What?” Alpha asked.

“I found it!” the Behemoth yelled, the wind picking up all around him. “I found it! It’s just like in the ’Verse—a giant stone circle!”