Corvayne breathed in, steam filling his nose and mouth both with blessed heat and the smell of cooked meat, simmering gravy, and the wine he had put into it. The kitchen window looked back on a few trees that had changed from green to a cheery mix of yellows, oranges, and reds as the temperature had begun dipping. From what Mister I told him, July is when you started to get cold days, and August would likely bring the first snows, even if it didn't stick around. Corvayne was glad that he had picked cooking as a hobby to try to force downtime on himself, given the kitchen was the warmest room in the house. Even so, he still had on a thick black sweater and was wearing the Jam Jammies, the jelly filled pants generating it's own warmth. He and the artifact had come to an agreement that let him shift them to something that looked like normal black pants when he wasn't fighting. He of course wore his spear behind his brown apron's straps. Even if it was weird, he was a warrior, and it felt like... a part of him.

A warrior who was almost done with a titanic engineering project. The Bourguignon was almost done, thanks to the instructions of a long fallen cooking master. He gave a little warrior's salute to Julia before turning the heat down. Movement behind him proved to be a flash of silver hair as Lady Blood Claw was looking in to see if the meal was ready.

"It's almost ready." He said, looking back to see brown and white dots flickering across gray skin. He wasn't sure if hunger was really an emotion but it was on the list of skin colors he knew. "Can you ask Preshe to help set the table?"

Lady Blood Claw gave a curt nod, then turned and like a weapon master asking him to strike a dummy 100 times, bellowed. "Prii! Help set the table. They are your friends." Corvayne kept a firm lid on his own thoughts about who was more excited.

Corvayne could hear the girl coming down the stairs and she came into the kitchen and opened the non magical silverware drawer, for a moment looking then picking up the entire tray of silverware. "Sorry. Was picking my outfit out."

Corvayne couldn't really tell what was 'cool' regarding fashion, but to him they just looked like her normal clothes. She did seem to favor black and brown colors for some reason. "Are you going to be cold with short sleeves?"

She smiled shyly as she balanced the drawer against her while holding up her wood prosthetic, wiggling the fingers. "Half and half. Also we were going to go in after dinner to study."

Corvayne turned. "Hmm. Just studying?"

She spun away with a bounce. Corvayne nodded at Lady Blood Claw who was grabbing a stack of the fall placemats that Bell had picked out. She stopped. "You could ask Spears to bump the temperature up."

"She likes it cooler, and Bell keeps buying me sweaters and scarves." He felt two tugs in [[Unity]] as he thought about them. One upstairs, the other distant but coming closer as Bell no doubt was riding back from her duties in Nel'Ferral's capital.

Corvayne could somewhat gauge how close they were with his developing domain over the house, and also felt three somewhat familiar and two familiar blips stepping onto the lawn. Corvayne reached behind himself and used [Cross Skill: Shadow Step] (with not a drop of snarling beast energy to avoid damaging the hardwood floors) to reach the door, then decided to step over to the picture window.

He opened it to see a view of the suburban street, houses and gutters alike clad in wet leaves from trees that were just saplings the last time he had visited. The street lights and driveway lights outside hadn't started coming on yet even though it looked dark out because of the clouds. He only took in the gray sky for a moment before looking down at four teenage girls and one 'thing' that looked like a teenage elf with red eyes getting out of a bright red minivan. He waved to the mom driving, Grace? Grace, Beth's mom, spotted him and waved and gave a thumbs up. Big difference from the first time Preshe had tried to invite the girls over for Tower time. He guessed from the happy chattering the game they had watched went well for their school.

Beth herself had the tennis bag she stored her mace in slung over her shoulder, which made Corvayne smile inwardly. 'Just studying' indeed. He was always happy to see Preshe trying to sneak anything past him. He saw that Gee and Bree, two girls whom he suspected had longer names he had never heard spoken, were also packing equipment for delving. Or maybe one was going to help him chop vegetables and the other was just a casual fan of the child wizard movies.

Hylal hopped out of the car and thanked Grace for the ride or was just waving her arms around. She was still dressed for summer with vibrant colors, likely due to the elemental spirits she kept as company. [[Understanding]] hitting 20 had a prounced effect that humanized her, so she looked less like like an upright bird and more like a girl who had a little parrot on her grandfather's side.

The last girl slid out of the car and looked bored and slightly under dressed as well, pale bare arms exposed to the air. Many of the students at the school assumed she was some sort of elven cosplayer and mocked her, which she dutifly ignored for the the one week it lasted. As the so-called 'System Apocolypse' started to happen there was a shift, as did the company she kept.

Levels mattered, and while Hylal was the highest level person they could scan, Gylwin's status was a whole lot of question marks. Corvayne, knowing what to look for, caught little red eyes opening on the sides of her bare arms, scanning for trouble. The spider had offered to become Preshe's bodyguard and, Corvayne suspected, secretly was enjoying going to school under the guise of being a normal girl. She said it was for 'cover' and 'to protect Hylal' that she went to the game... but she was also finishing a paper plate of nachos off. He felt his eyes narrow: he had worked on dinner for about four hours. She had better be hungry.

Still, Bell appreciated her extending protection to her daughter. Argyle was the only person who might be a match for Hylal that he knew of, but Baron L'Tideru would eventually stop being busy with the unrest and changes the portals opening had caused. Not to mention Goule. Both Wick and Gylwin were fairly sure the man had agents on Cascadia. Wick had isolated herself in Old Town and had Grunt with her to ensure that anyone who recognized the wayward princess didn't report anything, but Corvayne was worried that someone would figure out that something was up with a group of high school girls who were leveling way too fast, even with chalk'd statuses. There was a chance someone on floor 90 in a golden palace was scrying with compass level 10 for an essence class to develop and would try to swoop in with elites.

He opened the door, banishing his worries and producing six signed black and white pictures of Seru giving a thumbs up. Hylal lead the way in, ignore the pictures. "Hi Corvayne-Dad!" She chirped, tossing her gym bag into her storage ring by hurling it at the coat rack.

Beth gave him a nod as she walked in, faint limp only barely registering to Corvayne. "Hello Mr. Corvayne." He handed her the signed picture. "Oh, tell Seru I love her videos! You are cool in them too."

[[Unity]] and [[Understanding]] added the teenagers unspoken 'Cool for a dad' for him. Which confused him, because he wasn't a dad. It might have been the sweater and apron.

"I reported to her that she had fans. If you want, I could ask her to go on a run with you girls." He did not mention that Seru would have had them in videos already if Corvayne hadn't requested that they play it cool with her newfound celebrity status. Corvayne himself was not used to people he didn't know calling his name out. Preshe stood out enough without being linked to Seru's rising star.

"Oh that would be sooooo cool! You're the best!" [[Understanding]] was doing work to translate a piece of slang he did not get, as the Cascadian was something like 'that's a sopping wet deal' and 'you are the cheese on the burger'. He appreciated that due to the pact, it made a lot of the heavy lifting for Preshe catching up in school work and learning the language trivial.

Corvayne nodded. "Thank you Bree. If you want to pick a seat at the table, dinner will be ready soon."

He handed one of Seru's signed pictures to Gee, who just nodded. She looked back to look at Gylwin, probably unaware that the elf friend she had a secret crush on was a shape-shifting psychic spider and almost certainly knew even if she didn't tap into her own [[Unity]] powers. To be fair to Gee, her feelings were positively wholesome compared to the time that Corvayne went to a game and [[Unity]] picked up on what the boys looking at the high level spider felt.

Gylwin hadn't commented on Gee trying to figure out how to build the system-visible piety with Falenti. Seru had mentioned her deal offhand in a video, and since then Gee had a few times asked him or Lady Blood Claw about the Inn. Gylwin, thankfully, seemed to push them away from going to where they could accidentally talk to gods. For now.

The third of the 'regular' girls, Bree, had d20 earrings and was wearing a jean jacket over black, traditional Gygaxian clothes. He had picked up from her own thoughts on the outfit that it had marked her as a former social exile. Seru had, without actually knowing it, helped flip her to being suddenly trendy as 'DnD core' became a popular style, with lots of black clothes, torn jean jackets, felt capes, and black eye shadow. Not to mention the sudden upsurge of everyday folks using medieval weapons. Bree wore absolutely the least goofy outfit she could that still announced to everyone that she lived in a house where dice came first.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

He handed her three of the signed pictures, knowing two would go to her parents and one would be reluctantly hung up in her room. The smile she gave him was genuine, as he had introduced her to Mosh and Mister I.

She looked to see that Beth's mom had pulled away before taking out her wooden seed necklace and made a little shield out of a paperclip, a small prayer gesture to a goddess of creation. While he was almost dead certain that Gygax cosmically was in some sort of alliance with the other god, her parents were dead certain that it was taboo. He had a feeling that Bree was getting closer to sitting her parents down and facing their wrath, especially since sooner or later the trick with chalk on status would leak. Not from Seru at least. When she thought something was better not said, she could be as tight lipped as Grunt.

He did not mention to her that through the short status screens everyone who stepped onto his lawng go, he saw she somehow was earning triple favor with Lythandies, Gygax, and Falenti all at once. Nor did he state his thoughts that her parents would likely support her finding her own way in life. That was her journey to go on.

Gylwin was last in line, the titanically powerful Astral Stalker nodding at Corvayne as she stepped into the house. The way she navigated to the dining room and turned to line up with the door was a hint that she might have extra limbs that [[Understanding]] had smoothed over. The moment a real threat showed up, she'd have to drop the illusion she was just Preshe's... pal? Cousin? The spider liked to flex sometimes with it's combined psionic powers, [[Unity]] and [[Understanding]] to combine to what Corvayne dubbed [[[Total Bullshit]]] which made everyone just nod along when she changed her cover story.

That and people were finding you had a sort of twitchy feeling when you were close to someone who had a level vastly beyond yours, which possibly meant the few people suspicious of her quickly stopped asking questions.

With everyone settling in for dinner, Corvayne dished out bowls of the stew and a slice of homemade bread, also pulling out mashed potatoes and rice. Spears came down to the kitchen in a sweater and jeans and gave Corvayne an unusually chaste kiss before sitting down. She was wearing a silver necklace they had found on a ten floor 'date night' run.

Bell walked in the door as Corvayne put her bowl down, and he moved from the dining room to give her a big hug. He was struck by how chilly her rainproof jacket was. The princess returned a kiss then hung her things up on physical pegs next to the Tower entrance door to let them dry.

"Did the shields not work?"

"Had to run to the store." She smiled then sniffed the air. A hint of her old haughtiness in her voice came back. "A meal fit for a queen?"

"Or Lady Blood Claw requesting something difficult and me figuring we had guests." Corvayne said, walking with her to sit. He did stop to put a chunk of cooked meat in Mr. Squigglesworth's bowl, drawing the floating squid away from the kitchen where he had been begging scraps for the last two hours. He had noted that the monster seemed to be getting bigger and had command of more then a few words. On the other hand, he was a good boy.

The girls talked about the game while they ate, and how happy they were the school had cut back hours and days temporarily while they started trying to figure out how to deal with the rapid changes to society Tower portals opening up all over brought. Corvayne didn't mention he had a request from the principal to become a Tower PE teacher two days a week to try to give kids who wanted to Delve a practical skill set. Any reservations he had about giving teenagers the tools to fire off magical attacks would be hypocritical.

He had work to do on the curses. The last month was progress, with his percentage now down to single digits, and he wanted to have a breakthrough. While scouting Pine Bay West High for a genius might help the organization, they were more likely in the Tower. It was time to look ahead at a longer excursion to bump levels, upgrade his pacts, and push for new unlocked way stones so they could delve deeper. So they had places they could run, if need be.

Corvayne didn't make it much of a secret that he was working on building a home inside the Tower so he could spend a seventh of the time sleeping and speed up his time spent crafting. Some of the portals that were easy to get to and had more normal level 1 monsters and terrain had folks who had started creating hotels and study cafes to let people compress their time in the 'real world' or 'floor 0'.

His almost laughably easy slime Tower was something he'd probably one day give over to the public, as the slimes inside could be safely fought and defeated by a healthy five year old bare-handed. He knew this because his neighbors had asked him if they could get their kid levels for the safety hp gave them. After the third kid under 10 was able to kick the slime once to kill it, he figured he might as well prep the fourth kid for having pugilist or monk.

He was pretty sure that Lady Blood Claw was going to have the girls do a little studying then hit a 15 or 20th floor for more combat practice and to keep working on their levels. Their real levels, not the Warrior 13s or Rouge 10s their status said.

Beth – Level 52 Mace Warrior (2)/Level 30 Former Cheerleader (1)

Gee – Level 51 Rouge (2)/Level 5 Initiate of Secrets (2)

Bree - Level 51 Acolyte of Lythandies (2)/ Level 15 Healer (1)

Corvayne had been told by Leigue that Argyle had gained a few levels to hit 56 while not running around trying to build his own organization. Months ago learning the time monks level had still seemed so impressive. That number nearly doubled Corvayne's own level 31 and level 1 to 3 subjobs, which advanced at a glacial pace even when they dipped their toes into hunting on level 30. He wasn't sure what Alienist was or wanted him to do to level either, but it wasn't killing dinosaurs that spit lava. He was having to shift sideways to keep growing, and he really needed to figure out how to undo whatever essence removing curse he was under.

Preshe followed him into the Kitchen as he went to pull desert out of the fridge. Nothing fancy, just store bought pudding mixed in with the raisin sized fruits from a monster plant that was like butter made of chocolate. He handed her the dish and went to get bowls and clean spoons. Hobbies like his cooking had become more important to him because they were a few more easy points to wear away at his curse integrity score, and because Preshe's missing arm had made it hard to find active things to do to include her in his daily training. At her request he had worked with her for an hour then an hour and a half in the morning learning to fight and move, from the get-go giving her a carved wooden prosthetic weight to make sure she learned proper balance for when they had a real one grafted. The arm she had now she had carved herself.

Corvayne had felt proud of her, a new feeling, a weird sort of giddy joy seeing her carve her own articulated wood arm and ask Lady Blood Claw to help enchant it. It couldn't hold much weight, but it put some of the skills she had picked up when she was forced into rune carving and applied them to something that didn't trigger memories of her past life. Seeing her make friends and talk about founding what looked like the beginnings of a club for their school, perhaps her own guild.

The only problem he saw was that while Beth, Gee, and Bree all had passed his tests to trust them with part of Preshe's secrets, using misdirection to give Gylwin credit as well, he was also sure the moment that more people knew what her real class was and what it could do, the quiet days they were having now would be over. Wick had plans for the girl and for Corvayne to get and train them a second essence specialist, as well as figure out how to craft essence manipulation into an item.

Corvayne had argued against the itemization, firmly, on the basis that his [Pacts] gave them a monopoly and an advantage. They both had the same information that their new high level allies had brought with them about the high tower, and additional questions about groups who had worked with powerful beings slumming it on the low floors to level their toddlers. The numbers told him that while they advanced quickly because of having incredible gear and the money to hire exceptional mercenaries, some of whom drank potions to drop back down to level 1 to avoid splitting essence too much... the accelerated time table for three months was something like level 1 to level 40, with most of the groups settling into a super monster dense floor 11 and camping on the stairway.

Three months in the Tower killing nearly non stop. No breaks to go on a jog around the block. No breaks to play Frisbee with the pet squid. No breaks for Spears to show the girl how to hunt. To go to school with a spider bodyguard. To make friends with a cheerleader who badly broke her leg, a girl who had trouble talking, and a girl shunned for dressing old fashioned. They were not taking a break exploring or looking at treasure with Bell and Hylal in the tower. They didn't spend time fishing with Mister I on weekends. They didn't go shopping for gifts with Seru. They didn't get 'the Talk' with Hylal from a trio of embarrassed adults. They didn't go out to the garage and ask if they could help with wood working, or help get the rooms in the Tower itself set up. They didn't take a break to wake up crying in the middle of the night and have Corvayne make them hot coco and they didn't sit by the space heater with a blanket wrapped around them just listening to old stories about him and Spears, newer ones about Bell, nor exhaust themselves to get carried upstairs by LBC after they had both calmed her down. They didn't talk to Wick about what she did when the bad times came. They didn't go on a long hike with Hari gently filling in the silence with nature. They didn't stop after their first kill to cheer and maybe throw up because it was gross killing a furry slug. Nor did they have to get Brines to help convince their friends parents to let them go into the Tower together. They didn't make their own arm, go to the desert to have Mosh fit a new one, have Gary try to get them into anime, or have movie night with Grunt, or beg Corvayne to ride the trains all around Cascadia, looking at the lights. None of them had those 'delays' stopping them. The best they could do was level 40, maybe twenty in a subjob if they had a hunting ground that made questing for it trivial.

Oh, and three months without a multi-hundredth level bodyguard in the party dividing their gains.

Corvayne rubbed some dust out of his eyes, then looked at the most recent Identification, one not hidden in chalk marks to make it seem she was a shield fighter. He still didn't get why it threw his name after hers either. But the numbers he saw both gave him pride in how she had embraced her class, and also cold fear.

Preshe Corvayne Level 134 Essence Mage (4)/Level 98 Paladin of Lythandies (3) %%%%

Cons: Yellow. A high level crafter with a solid all rounder subjob and lots of levels and stats, her youth and lack of skills means most foes would find themselves in draw against her. A former slave who's family passed away, Preshe is adjusting to her new family and trying to find her place in the world, while worried her new happiness might not last.

Self appointed status message: Remind dad friends are coming over. Study for finals before winter break. Start brainstorming tier 5.

Essence apprentice → Essence Shaper → Essence Foci → Essence Mage

Core Traits: Call of Freedom, Essence Vision*, Essence manipulation, Atmosphere Draw, Essence crafting.

Core Powers: Fate Resistance, Obfuscation+++, Essence Share +

Artifacts: Steelhart Bloodline 1/3, Fortunes Fool 1/3.

Notes: 4 Unspent stat points.

Notes: 4 Unspent skill points.

Notes: 232 unspent talent points (((((Adjustments needed. Please do not spend more then 51 talent points until further notice – admin))))

Notes: 48 Unspent feats

Condition: Well Fed.

High Skills: Essence Shaping 58, Shield 45, One handed swords 35, Dodge 32, Wood Working 25

She didn't notice he was staring off into space and had started to help clear the dishes without being asked. Good kid. Corvayne stood up and told her and her friends to let him and Spears and Bell take care of cleanup. They had Gylwin and Lady Blood Claw with them, so he was sure they'd be safe. They had gone in without him a few times before.

A thought, not one he was proud of, came to mind. If he trained other essence users, then it reduced the chance that eventually, when the other shoe fell, they would go for the easy one.

He didn't like that. He wanted to say it was a Nyx thought, but he had been thinking about his father for some reason a lot lately. His father. Curses. Spears before and after. Diamond, possibly sitting above his house on the glittering new moon over Cascadia. No healer, not Mosh nor one he found with Tier 8 classes, could touch the curses. The Magus had demolished the Pilgrim's society. What other monsters were out there, willing to do whatever it took to gain a few more levels?

He looked at his home, a little cold but warm where it counted. He looked at the fuzzy slippers he had been wearing all day. Thought about things worth fighting for.

A spear moves forward. Corvayne picked up his phone and made a call he had been avoiding for... months. A call he more or less fought a war to avoid.

“Wick? I'm ready to talk.”