[44%]
Corvayne bolted awake and forced himself to summon a pen and pad of paper. Forty Four percent curse integrity. He was well over halfway to breaking it. Perhaps all the odd things he had been doing during the campaign against The Raven?
He had to withdraw a hand from inside of Spear's shirt, completely dry despite his fingers having sunk into her well rounded chest. He wrote down the percentage, then set his paper away and checked the tent. Bell's sister was asleep, looking troubled as she shifted in her sleep. No visible scars, despite extended contact with The Raven. Bell herself was still asleep, red hair flopped out of her sleeping bag. He considered putting his hand back in its resting place and try getting back to bed but was too awake and decided to let Spears rest. He instead strolled out into dim light of predawn.
Lady Blood Claw was sitting in one chair near a fire and nodded as she worked on breakfast. Brines was also helping while acting as watch, but given the carnage around them Corvayne was pretty sure they had depopulated the hills for miles around of monsters. Nobody seemed in the mood to talk, so he ate then moved into the grass around the camp, skinning wolves with his dagger. The elastic properties of the pelts meant Mosh could likely make something useful out of them. Maybe nice warm bed rolls, or a hammock, or an elastic coat. That's at least what he was telling himself as he struggled to slice the rough blood stained hides.
After both blood work and breakfast, the sun still had not crest over the horizon, so he moved down to one of the streams running through the floor and let the water wash off some of his sweat and gore. He trudged up a pair of slopes to camp and pulled out the book reading device Mosh had made. He stuck his hands, drained what little air had snuck in, then made some progress on the tome of martial mastery. He focused on a section with lots of diagrams on using knives and fists and other close work gear. Near the end of the basic exercises and practice moves, he saw there was a section on practicing putting 'energy' into weapons. If he hadn't been using reap and just discovered how to steal shadows, his eyes might have glazed over it. Instead he put the book and device containing it away, then cupped his hands to form a regular shadow. The practice was to hold a glob of an element in his hand, then pass it back and forth while keeping it round.
Summoning one of his fists, he tried making it like a child making a mud patty, trying to grasp the smokey shadow and push it into an orb. When that failed, he tried relaxing, and had some success pooling darkness in his hand but no success moving it. He then focused, and after twenty minutes of pushing and pulling in his head, changing his breathing, and closing his eyes, he tried cupping his open hand with his other, and found that in the dark the magic was somewhat physical as he did so. Cupped hands and focusing on mentally squeezing the ball seemed to work. He wanted to hurry onto applying it to a weapon, but the book had stated that he needed to be able to create a sphere without 'external help' which might include using his hands to make darkness.
He could walk and practice. The sun was up. It was time to move.
Corvayne set about waking everyone up to start their march across the floor. They broke down camp pretty quick, and Corvayne extended an olive branch to Tutu by offering to carry her tent with them until Mosh could mend it.
“Oh how thoughtful! Here I thought you were just a brute who pinned women down in their sleep-”
“You were awake.” Corvayne said while stuffing the mess into his ring. Interestingly, he was almost certain he had a higher weight limit than when he had stuffed it with steel beams.
“You also have put your hands on my sister, I can tell-”
“You are wrong.” Corvayne started breaking his own tent down, then shrugged and stored it as-is after pulling the stakes out.
Lady Blood Claw handed Tutu a bundle of stakes and a bag. “Make yourself useful and clean and store those.”
With some grumbling, the royal sex cultist showed that she at least had breaking camp down pretty well. The group was ready by the time the sun was starting to crest the far hills, bathing the nearly endless grassy expanse in orange lines.
For what Corvayne expected from a fifth floor, wolves aside, it continued to be a cake walk. There were very few monsters outside of rabbit forms, plentiful passive water and native animal life, and the gentle slopes and hills presented almost no challenge to navigation aside from just knowing where to go. Corvayne used his Compass power to orient himself to the stairs up, which meant they had been moving for the last three days in the same direction.
Lady Blood Claw sauntered up to walk near the front with him, as did Spears. Lady had a ball she had made of elastic wolf-hide she was using to play catch, and sometimes would toss to Corvayne to keep Mr. Squidgglesworth on his toes (tentacles), the floating squid drifting over to try to gently pry the ball away from him or urge Corvayne to throw it, then go zooming off. It made little bubbling noises that Corvayne found surprisingly cute, given that his first impression of the dungeon fauna had been just another oddity to avoid... or eat. Spears mostly talked about the village, from the perspective of someone who hadn't been shunned, punctuated by her leaping up into the air hundreds of feet every so often to try to spot threats.
It was at midday, perhaps six hours of walking, that Corvayne spotted the stairs up after a lot of walking upwards. One of the hills had a rounded stone arch in its base that had the tell-tale blue glow of a stairway to the sub-floor before the guardian. He turned around, looking at both his group and the grassy landscape behind them. “Everyone please aim for the Inn.”
Nyx rubbed his hands together. “You need not tell me twice!”
Spears looked back. “He's so enthusiastic about completing the quest!”
Corvayne looked at her, trying to match the woman who had given him a 'taste test' before with the naive view of what Nyx was after. “I think he's going to go find a date, actually.” He picked a slightly middle of the road path between being blunt and totally ignoring the comment.
“Oh, I thought you were going to help play matchmaker with him and Seru...”
Corvayne thought about that. “She isn't with us, maybe we'll tag them in and tap out Bearer.”
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Spears tapped her own chest. “If she wants to come. About Bearer, I think we talk to Grunt, and then decide if it was a one time mistake or a hint of malice.”
Corvayne stepped up the stairs and sighed with relief at seeing green wood and rows of tables. Warm lantern lights and tiled interior walls were visible when he was focusing on things nearby, but the moment his gaze went further he'd start to get a box of mirrors effect. He shook his head and tromped over to the bar. Today he wasn't going to go off seeking any weirdos for cryptic advice.
The barkeep's form at the moment was a primly dressed woman, but Corvayne was pretty sure that like Stabby the figure's form changed to something that people would see as a respectable bar keeper, rather than it being distinct people. He blinked and in the net moment he saw a gruff man with an eye patch immaculately dressed in the same vest the woman before had been. The man winked at him, and when Corvayne winked back he saw a different woman, one with a wolf pelt, wiping the bar down.
“Welcome Back Corvayne!” She roared, then set a pouch on the bar. “The Dustman left this as change.”
Corvayne peeked inside the leather pouch and saw what looked like a glowing orb inside. He pulled it out and looked at it, then looked back a the barkeeper, who had turned into what looked like a cat-man with effeminate features. Corvayne cleared his throat then asked, “Do you know what it is?”
The Barkeeper shrugged. “Since it was supplied to us, we just checked it was safe. The system thinks it can't accidentally be used to harm you. Other than that, we didn't identify it.”
Corvayne hefted the orb a little bit, trying to figure out what it could be for. The interior had a sort of rainbow pattern. “A perfect gift: exactly as enigmatic as he is.”
Bearer plucked it from his hands and put it on a towel before he could respond. “It's an orb. You ponder it of course.” She held her hands up before Lady Blood Claw could get herself kicked out of the bar.
Corvayne turned and addressed her faintly smug face. “And how should I, or another potential orb enjoyer, ponder it?”
Bearer put shades on. “You look at it really, really hard for a few minutes while waiting for your dinner to cook. Speaking of, I'd like Spaghetti with meatballs, with garlic bread, with Sourspring lemonade, Cornacopia style cuisine, trending on cooking blogs, master cooked, Parmesan, minus generic sauce, minus watery sauce, pro chef, just like great-grandma made it.” She tossed a gold coin onto the table where it spun before the Barkeeper deftly pocketed it, not at all phased by what sounded like the nonsense Bearer was spewing.
“Right away.” The Barkeeper said, and she vanished, started filling another drink, and set Bearer's drink down all at once. A moment that made Corvayne think of his own skill doubling. Bearer took her drink, raised it, took a sip, and then vanished into gloom despite Corvayne seeing things behind where she had been, no doubt from some Tower space warping function.
Lady Blood Claw took a seat next to him and ordered her own dinner, Beef Bourguignon with mashed potatoes and a glass of wine. Spears took the other seat and ordered roasted roc with wild rice and green. Corvayne had to think for a moment what the sausages Grunt had given him on the first night they met were called, then asked for 'Red Dilly Brats, Cascadian style, absolutely no pine needles.'
Corvayne then focused on the orb. Looking into its depths, he saw the the white light was actually a rainbow, and was gently splaying color onto the counter that shimmered. Shapes moved in the depths of the stone, and Corvayne felt himself getting drawn into it.
He saw the girl from his dreams, skin of gold and stars for eyes, standing before a doorway. The one in the hallway. She looked at him mournfully, then turned and strolled into the tower. He felt someone holding onto him as she vanished into what looked like murky black portal.
He saw himself then, younger. He was standing before a giant mantis holding a spear, then watched his younger self drop to one knee. “Train me!”
He heard Waves-Within speak as the mantid turned its head. Was his spear trainer actually a bug? “Are you sure? It will be hard to keep up with all of us. Everyone but the children have had years and years of training.”
Corvayne saw himself looking down. “With my skills... I wasn't able to change...”
Waves-Within waved all four of his surprisingly human looking hands. “I didn't say no! I can only imagine what sort of warrior you will be! Don't be so down, I'll make you some tea!”
Waves-Within skittered back into his home. A younger, shorter, and less toned but still fully slime-formed Spears peeked out of the doorway at young Corvayne.
He felt himself thinking, his mind recognizing some weird aspects of things he had seen in the village. Stairs that were ramps. Extra wide doors.
The mantid came back with a steaming cup of tea, and gave it to Corvayne. “I know you had a rough couple of days. We all did. The plan didn't work, but we'll get him next time...”
His younger self looked up and accepted the tea. “I'm also going to learn from Mugs-Already-Empty.”
Waves-Within stopped. “Eh? Two? But...”
“And Coming-in-Hot for guns. And One-Last-Note for swords. And Diamonds for claymores. And...”
Younger Corvayne started to sniffle.
Waves-Within patted him on the head. “I understand. You want to be her match, right?”
Corvayne nodded and stood up straight. He couldn't have been more than 12? Maybe 14. He was so scrawny and short.
He remembered then, picking up a training staff for the first time. He also remembered asking the other masters. He pushed himself day and night. Never stopped.
Corvayne was back in the bar, blinking his suddenly dry eyes. A plate of food was in front of him, and Spears was waving her hand in front of his face. Corvayne looked down at his hands, rough from endlessly repeating the forms of the spear dance. And the blade dance, and from learning knives, maces, axes, guns, every weapon he could pick up.
Lady Blood Claw was also looking at him. “What happened? You were staring at it for at least five minutes.”
The orb faded as if it wasn't there, and Corvayne felt something loosen inside him.
[41.0%]
He saw that both Lady and Spears were looking at him, as well as Bell. He thought about it for a bit, and to all three girls credit they seemed to get he was thinking and started eating rather than bothering him. He looked at his own freshly served dinner, letting the warm steam and spiced meat scent drift across his face as he rolled back to the memory of the starry eyed girl. He had been held back from following her, and had a sense of dread for the portals... but you could just walk in and out of most of them, right?
Now he guessed that the memories he was uncovering were real, as was reality that he was experiencing now. He recalled the disconnect sometimes where someone would act or say something and he felt there was something off. So, he was getting a sense that the girl with starry eyes was important to him, and to his past. She was a fundamental part of why he turned himself into a walking arsenal.
“It seemed to uncover some of my memories of the past. It also reduced my curse integrity a little... Was Waves-Within always a giant mantis?”
Spears put her fist in her palm. “Oh yeah! You were surprised by me too! You said I was tan with dark hair, right? Hmm... so which do-”
“You right now.” Corvayne said immediately.
“So you don't think-” Spears started to ask.
“I like your real form much more.” He said again without letting her even possibly finish asking.
“But was it-”
“It looked fine but I like your real form more.” When he thought about the person who relentlessly called him names and looked at him like dirt, it made him think of the misery he experienced in the village. He glanced over at his new girlfriend who had colored her cheeks red while looking happy. She looked great, though at some point he would have to ask her wear a swimsuit and go swimming to overwrite a few tan lines seared into his brain.
He went back to thinking. He knew he had to doubt his old memories now. It would be foolish to think that everyone would be like Spears and go through a full 180 from love to hate. Still, he wanted to discover the truth. Just another reason to find the way back to his village.
Corvayne picked up a seasoned sausage by the bun and started wolfing it down. Before he could go anywhere else, they had bosses to kill.