Corvayne expected to find a corpse or half dead man at the end of the furrow that the Cowboy Cultivator had carved into the desert. Bell's rocket had formed enough of a crater that the road had taken some damage.
He had a moment of warning before a blade of air parted the dust. Corvayne used [Flow-Like-Water] as he felt the second one blow through his watery form. The cowtivator aimed a blow at where his head should have come out of the watery slide, clearly having fought people with the skill before. Corvayne used [Cross-Skill: Shadow Step] to move through his enemy and land a slash that only did superficial damage.
The man seemed frustrated as they exchanged attacks, Corvayne somehow too fast for the man's lightning quick boots and spurs to land anything. He flowed from [[Agility]] to [[Strength]] as he landed a hit on the man's ankle.
It didn't penetrate as much as it should, but the man wasn't able to follow when Corvayne rolled away to make room for a rain of water spears centered on the cowtivator. The ten foot long sapphire bullets splatted mud everywhere as they pounded the ground with deep whumps, flashing as elemental water wore away whatever defenses the man had. When he tried to move, Corvayne used [Storm Thrust] to push him right back into ground zero, and a few second later the second part of the fight was over and they had their battered and bruised assailant.
Corvayne dragged him over to Juggernaut, who was chewing on an armor plate that was crumpled, pulling it off and spitting it out. Corvayne would have thought that there would be scales under it like the rest of the creatures body, but the wounded part was some sort of glowing red tentacles, stretched and Corvayne took a moment to use a spare hand and mend the plate, then usiug [[Strength]] to heft it into place. The weird fire tentacles latched onto it and with a wet sound it setttled into place.
Corvayne grabbed the cowtivators robe again and dragged him around to the side door into the truck. He decided if they were going to hold a potentially dangerous enemy, they'd do so in a room they could keep really closed. Hence, he opened the door they had added that should lead into dirt.
Instead Corvayne dragged the man into a small chamber with a glass ceiling filled with simple metal shelves and rows of plants. Corvayne moved the wood chair out of the way and turned back to Spears.
"Can you get Mosh to whip up some enchanted chains?"
A few minutes later they had the cultivator tied up at the back of Lady Blood Claw's garden.
Preshe was waiting outside. "Corvayne are you okay? I saw them grab you."
He could feel new skin itch, and all the broken bones he had been forcing to hold together were starting to shred muscle, as was his Adept fragments. It all hurt. "I'm fine."
He pulled the bag out of the dimensional space and shook it. He smiled. "I got the snacks."
Resplendent Jade-Fire Rawhide spit. "Tch. Your attempts at questioning me are pathetic!"
There was a lot of spit on the floor of the greenhouse. Corvayne was going to see if perhaps their unwilling guest could at least spit into the plants and not waste the water.
Spears had her arms folded. "This isn't working." Her watery face nor tone gave away frustration or being tired of two hours of asking questions over and over, in different ways. Just stating a fact.
Bell turned away and pulled Corvayne to her, as if their prisoner couldn't hear anything they said three feet away. She jerked her thumb back. "I watched royal inquisitors work. I can certainly do it too."
Corvayne sighed. "We are not torturing our prisoner."
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Bell glared. "He's practically ASKING for it!"
Corvayne sighed. "If we were going to do that... I'd let Lady Blood Claw handle it."
"And wake her up?!" Bell actually added a hint of worry into her voice. When she was acting, she was good. Corvayne didn't really need her to act, though, because over two hours of asking questions and mostly getting snorts and snarls and spits, he HAD been doing something.
[[Unity]] might be immoral as a tool for violating privacy and influencing minds, but Corvayne drew the line at letting someone kidnap and maybe kill their friend for no good reason. He had done two things.
First, he had made Resplendent Jade-Fire Rawhide a party member. [[Unity]] might have let him cheat that, or just a flaw in the party system, since the only requirement for Corvayne was to not attack the man, and he had even given him his cowboy hat back despite Bell looking at it covetously.
“If we wake LBC up... it will bring only pain. She's not going to get more out of him.” Corvayne added. Which was all true, just mostly LBC's pain. She would also be cranky if the sleeping potions were working.
Meanwhile, [[Unity]] was telling him things. Lying took creativity, and there was a slight hint of control when Corvayne asked a question that the man knew the answer to. He had been careful to not ask his questions in tandem, letting everyone else demand answers or ask variations. Corvayne was trying to play a game Grunt had insisted he play, even though the large man had to use paper. Battleship, as it was, involved lots of throwing out guesses, and carefully mapping what worked and what didn't.
They had started looking near Cascadia based on what Kirae had told them when she was captured. A picture of Kirae had faint familiarity and smugness. Talking about tracking, Corvayne was sure the group had some methods like his compass, but the term didn't trigger anything so it was a different power. Corvayne had made Juggernaut turn around, and Mosh had raced ahead to ask if the store they had been at before had been visited.
The man had not spoken much, which showed he at least understood that even bragging would get him into trouble. He did react to numbers. 43 was a big one.
Corvayne sighed. “I don't know if he knows anything.” Smug pleasure radiated off the man. “I don't like the idea of finishing him off, but I don't want to drag him up to floor 43 just to ransom him.”
Panic. Disbelief. Corvayne looked at the man, forcing himself to keep his face blank. Somehow, that made the man scared. “I only care about finding my friend, and he didn't really help us at all, not even confirmed what we already knew.”
Spears put a hand on Corvayne's shoulder. “We can't keep doing this, we don't need anyone else's vengeance!”
Agreement. Panic, agreement! The man even nodded a little. Corvayne thought about The Raven and his mask broke a moment before he schooled himself. “Will they even know? They are far away from their territory.” The link told him this was sort of true. “Too far for us to take him.”
The man spoke up. “Hah, our clan has it's claws across the tower! You will not find us so easy to evade!”
Gylwin, whom Corvayne had not realized was in the room, traced a claw down the man's face.
“Haply we never seek to flee, yet we cleve to carnage.” Her voice sounded joyful yet somehow empty. As if she was talking to a child.
He guessed he just tried to use an appraisal skill on Gylwin. He started trying to move his chair away. Corvayne frowned and crossed his arms.
“I thought you were going to leave this to us.”
“And let you wake Lady Blood Claw?” She tittered. Her hand started to shift as her language moved to modern Cascadian. “Your methods are slow or will be too crude.” She shot a glance over to Bell, who rolled her eyes a little and broke character, not that their prisoner was looking anywhere but at the spider herself. “As long as one acts quickly to preserve it, a dead brain is nearly defenseless. I have methods of preparing it within that time for consumption. If you enjoy fatty meat such as liver, brain can be a pleasure beyond the secrets you pull by eating it.”
Corvayne knew she was riding shotgun in the [[Unity]] link he had forged. Gylwin was the being who had urged him to get it, and she operated in it like a fish in water, breaching and vanishing into the rising emotions of the man.
He seemed calm, in control, contemptuous of them. But inside he was scared. Corvayne didn't like what they had to do, but the manipulation work would give Gylwin pretty much free reign.
“I'm going to say we need him alive to get to where they have her, and trade for Kirae. Keep it simple.” He would say that later, but he was not thinking it. The chance of getting dragged into a trap was too high, and telling your enemy what you wanted was a good way to make it that much dearer.
“We don't need to fucking drive him home.” Spears spat.
“We take him to where Kirae is.”
“Hmmf. And shame myself to my clan? To even hold me hostage, you'd need to convince me I'd get anything out of helping you worthless wretches!”
“Besides going home?” Corvayne created homesickness and slid it into the mix of emotions. [[Unity]] let him know that Gylwin was gorging. “Or back to where you stashed our friend?”
It was his bond with Gylwin that let him finally relax. He could stop forcing the guy to remember things with questions, and finally cut the link to the greedy little asshole. Not once had the man felt anything but inconvenience regarding his dead allies.
Gylwin ruffled the man's hair, then replaced his cowboy hat. “I have everything. Unless Corvayne you need to torture him to get curse completion.”
“I don't need to cross that line yet.” He had lost more then a few points since they fled into the Towers.
Corvayne hadn't ever tortured anyone or killed someone they had taken prisoner, and the thought of starting to do so made him sick. He also had no desire to babysit the jerk all the way up to floor 43. So they settled for stealing everything besides Resplendent cow-print silk underwear and cowboy hat (Corvayne wasn't cruel) then leaving him tied up in the back of a truck heading the other way.