Corvayne had thought the barn was some sort of massive cathedral when he first saw it a few days ago. A towering mountain of wood, breaking the flat horizon of the endless flat plane to the south. It had open shutters that he had guessed were waiting be filled with stained glass, and a titanic footprint that could fit a few small towns. He wasn't entirely wrong in retrospect; it was a sort of temple centered around the reverent production and transfer of monster shit.

He could not figure out what else the sect got out of it. After nine long days of moving a stupifying amount of crap, he was pretty sure the entire sect had to have some sort of quest to turn as much foodstuff as possible into monster poop, and then to bathe their would be aspirants in as much shit as possible by finding every type of creature the size of blimp they could coax into a cage and hooking them up with the crazy amount and variety of dry grass.

The good news was that it was a hell of a good workout, and he found being spurred by Big-Red-Bramble every morning to run with the rest of the shovel initiates was a good warm up for what was essentially a series of spear drills. The shovel was his weapon and his impossible goal was to duel 'Big Bessie' and try to clean her enclosure. He wasn't even close to winning with just a shovel and grit.

Of course, Corvayne was a clever warrior and assumed that the best way to increase the speed that he moved the pile (It was 'the' pile because he had yet to even make a dent in one pile, his pile, the first pile, hence THE pile) into a wagon, which was wagon sixteen and was the sized of a small truck and pulled by a monster that also pooped creating a weird sort of Faustian loop of poop, something like the old spaceship problem when you had to burn fuel to carry fuel and burn fuel to carry the fuel that carried the fuel and so on... one of those loops that quickly makes one thankful for antigravity... anyway the fastest way to move THE pile into A wagon would be to utilize some sort of weapon skill. He had this very clever thought about two hours into his first shift.

Since using [Cross-Skill: Storm Thrust] on the first day and accidentally splattering a whole bevy of level 50 youths who were also assigned to shoveling the pile of poop, Corvayne had mostly been working alone and now it was his pile.

Of course, he wasn't just hefting crap. The entire time his body was falling into the rhythm of using his arms and legs to thrust, lift, heft manure into the cart, he was watching people come and go, and subtly trying to get the hang of using his upgraded pacts, mostly [[Unity]] by forming links.

He had a lot of new pact synergies in general to try out, though some of them as always sounded... sort of dangerous while also interesting. They were hinting at switching species, and things like diverting essence to buff or evolve his weapon skills, or something called 'Essence Mania' as well as that he could spend the stuff to raise his stats or skills. [[Understanding]] and [[Growth]] were feeding him little hints about his class evolution, something about learning to blur into a second skill, another about swinging the same weapon a thousand times, another about summoning a weapon, and something confusing about finding 100 links. It was disappointing he couldn't do much with it as he was stuck on shovel duty.

A cheerful voice pulled him from attempting to fill the truck. “Hey there Sticky!”

Corvayne always tagged her as Bombshell, as the blondes name was supposedly Bombay Hill, and who was he to judge fake sounding names? She had doe eyes and a bit of fae linage, something like a magic deer giving her little horns and a white tail that wiggled whenever she was talking to him. Maybe, given the floor, part jackalope? Anyway, she had a little too much enthusiasm and too little clothes for the job. Corvayne gave her a polite nod but kept putting his shovel into crap. He could see, out of the eye not perilously close to her swaying cleavage, that Big Red was looking at him.

Never her, which he suspected was either because she hit her weeks quota before she came over to say hi or that she was some sort of secret princess in the sect. She possibly had something that either kept her clean or changed perception of herself, as even after a day of mucking stalls she looked perfect.

More importantly, she seemed to have latched onto Corvayne as her buddy to hang out with. Corvayne had slapped her with a [[Unity]] link as well, but had not been juicing it too much lest she get handsy. The problem being that after nine days with no sex and constant supervision, he was starting to get prone to distraction.

“So you going to the bar with the boys tonight?” She asked, twirling a little bit of her hair as she spoke.

“I would but I have a date with Guard A and Guard B. Rather then one bar, they intend to put me behind a series of them.”

She laughed like it was the funniest thing she had ever heard, even slapping him on the shoulder. He did not stop working, as Big Red was surprisingly fast on his feet, closing fifty feet from by a watering trough to being well within hollering range. Corvayne saw some of the less motivated disciples start furiously flinging feces into their carts.

He had learned to keep an eye on them at all times, as there had been several 'accidents' with flying cow-pies in the last week. Moreso since Bombshell had started doing everything she could to get at the pile next to his.

In fact, his danger sense made him take a step back and pull his chin in, dodging a brown projectile. He briefly thought about using [Cross-Skill: Expert Throw] to land a cowpie at one of the likely suspects, three initiates that had been nicknamed 'Three Horsespits' by everyone. Corvayne wasn't sure of their real name but he knew they had been fighting with eachother until Bombshell started clinging to him, and now that ire was all directed at him.

“Now SEE here...” Big-Red-Bramble came waddling over, pretending that his large belly was slowing him down. He coughed and adjusted his tone. “See here Miss Hill, yall are talking to a prisoner! Apple Core Vine-”

“Corvayne.” He didn't stop shoveling.

“Despite putting in more sweat that the rest of you lot, present company excluded Miss Hill, see, this varmint is a trespasser on clan territory, and was part of a conspiracy to try to kidnap one of our negotiators!”

“Huh, I know he's a prisoner, but yall know, it's not like he's tried to escape!” She curled a strand of hair and it might as well been a well-lobbed acid ball, as Red got even redder and start fiddling with his little tie.

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Corvayne meanwhile spared a glance where most of the boys, Horsespit or not, were giving him the death look. A few girls were giving him glares, and a few girls were giving other guys glares. If he had time to look away from the brown mountain that Bessie was adding to, he might trace exactly who liked who. [[Understanding]] and [[Unity]] saw that a girl glaring at the Horse-boys trio liked the one who didn't look like a thug, Verdant Blade?

If they all went drinking, he could remove himself from those glares and hopefully the oblivious golden double D apple would become someone elses problem. “Bombsh- Miss Hill, go with your fellow initiates. If I went, someone would have to shadow me to make sure I didn't leave. My guards can't approve of that-”

Big Red slapped Corvayne's back, with probably enough force to break something if Corvayne actually had been properly depowered. “Well you don't have to worry, I'll keep him out of trouble! If you don't mind me tagging along, of course.”

Bombay beamed. “Why not? We all worked together today, right?”

Corvayne started to protest but a cedar scented plaid arm wrapped itself around him, Big Red stopping his shoveling and protests. “Now don't you fuss, Corn Hay!!! You ain't going to be a prisoner forever, and when your a proper sect member after working off your debt, well, you'll look back at this as a night to remember!”

“I think that Blackhand-”

“LADY Cumberland!”

“Right. Acting sect leader Rio-Black-Fist-Cumberlin probably does not want me, in fact, in a bar drinking when ostensibly this is a punishment or trial of some sort.”

Bombshell jerked her head. “Well silly, if Big Red can go-”

The burly man efficently disarmed Corvayne and was now dragging him to the exit. “Crow Wayne you ain't got dang a leg to stand on! Get in my truck yall!”

The truck in question was something like Mister I's beat up old pickup but sized up about ten times in every way, huge tires something like 5 stories tall and the cab closer in size to something Corvayne would expect on a spaceship bridge, with two floors of bench seating. Even with all that, Corvayne could see out the back window some of the disciples were climbing the back ladder into the cab, where a giant rabbit was curled up.

Not him. He was the first of about twenty people sitting on the lower front bench next to Big-Red-Bramble himself and Bombshell, who was talking excitedly with a sullen looking girl next to her. Besides Bombshell and Boss Bramble, every one of the deciples had at least some manure on them, and so Corvayne wondered why they'd want to go out smelling like stables, but Big Red reached up to a dinner plate sized air freshner hanging from a huge video screen/rear view mirror, tugged it, and a wave of white light shot out, removing most of the dirt and leaving Corvayne cleaner then he'd been in days.

“This is going to be fun! I wanted to go out with yall!”

The sullen girl said “I've been at the sect two years and this is the first time I was invited to anything other then shoveling shit.”

She was giving Bombshell a rather flat look, but the bubbly girl simply hugged her. “Yall are going to have fun!”

She nudged Corvayne, who nodded. “Yeah, lots of fun.” He was watching how Big-Red-Bramble started the truck. If it was faithful to the types of trucks that he had seen, he might be able to steal it later... if needed.

No, more important was that it probably was a chance. Big Red wanted to get to know Bombshell better, and while he was doing that at the bar Corvayne might find some freedom to chat with Gylwin and have her teleport him to see Preshe, Spears, Bell, Lady Blood Claw, June and Mosh. Heck, the Juggernaut too. [[Unity]] was telling him that Gylwin herself had attached to the bottom of the truck they were in. Or was for a few moments, then she was gone, leaving something like a faint image there. Probably some weird bug-clone thing.

Big Red finished starting the truck and fixing the radio to blast some sort of old sad cowboy song, and into the dusk they raced.

Most of floor 43 that he had seen was flat, and the stables was one of the buildings near the endless grazing plains. Behind him, Corvayne could see the black shape of the mountains the sect was built around against the setting sun. The path ahead was a huge paved line cutting through dark woods, though the truck itself made them look like bushes given how far up they were. He could see something move out of the way of the floodlights the truck used in place of headlights, probably one of the giant aggressive livestock that one of his guards assured him would love to eat a helpless level 30 if he was to stray from the safety of the sect. Given that the grounds were 'the size of Texas' which after some confusion on his part eventually was clarified to 'It would take you a day to ride across here any which way' he didn't think he bother risking it.

His compass was hinting at a door fifty miles north of himself, with the height difference he was thinking it was in one of the high sect peaks off to the side. His gazing in the way his invisible compass was pointing lead him to meet Bombshell's eyes and he could feel something like hunger wafting off the woman through [[Unity]]. Something Grunt had said (signed) about a desperate dude being a turn off surfaced as he looked away, not having to entirely fake boredom.

He had considered at least some half-hearted flirting with Bombshell to get Big Red to step in and 'win', then go off on his own. He wouldn't have minded her getting drunk and showing off her sect peak, but as magnificent as they were he was reminded of his girlfriends. Perhaps the sect put him there to draw him into trouble? Or forget his friends?

He saw that their overseer and driver was starting to drift to the right, the same way his gaze was over on Bombshell's bombshells so Corvayne reached up and slightly righted the wheel to the left, stopping them from plowing through a bunch of old growth forest.

“Damnit ya didn't need to do that!”

An impulse, perhaps frustration, made him reply dryly “Don't want us to get to the bar, then have them look at the car and say we've had enough.”

He thought Boss Bramble was about to slug him; He'd seen a sort of pause before the man laid out a cheeky trainee before, but then he exploded into laughter.

“Not to mention it's hard to fix a giant bumper AFTER I'm drunk! Hah! Good one Crowbar!”

Twenty or so minutes into the drive was a section of the road that took them up into the foothills of the towering sect peak, and many moons showed off just how much woods and plains there were to a line of distant watch towers, lights shining out into the grit. It helped Corvayne match where he thought they might be compared to the map, they were south central or possibly but not likely on the north east side of the sect. The lights ahead confirmed it, they were going to the city that the sect kept. Huge skyscrapers with neon cowboys and screens showing cowtivators in rugged leather robes smoking cigarettes, with the digital face of a cowgirl winking on a loop... Corvayne suspected they sequestered all the industry in one place, as the giant car they were in probably had to be made in a giant car factory.

They stopped short of downtown, as the truck was not fit to get under the more sane sized bridges in the city. Instead they were in an industrial district, lit up by florescent lights with subtle shades of green blue and red. The extra wide streets were clearly designed for huge trucks like Big Red's, but reminded him of Old Town a little. A faint hint of homesickness reared it's head, it had been a long while since they ran from the Magus and home.

He was pulled back to reality when the truck lurched to a stop at the start of a well lit row of bars and 24 hour stores, slicing a line of light and activity through the quiet rows of factories. The crowds he were seeing looked to be folks in jeans, girls in dresses with big fancy hats and glittery boots, stern looking fellows in robes with huge surfboard sized swords strapped to their backs, old cowpokes sitting and smoking, just watching the truck. Big Red opened the window, and the stuffy hot night air came in, carrying with sounds of laughing and overloud music from the bar, and the scent of cigarette and gasoline smells, mixed in with spilled booze and spilled guts, a wiff of hot butter and pretzels from a food place, as well as a swirl of perfumes and cologne and a hint of piss.

To Corvayne it could have been roses because it finally replaced the smell of giant monster-cow shit.

Big Red, his ostensible temporary warden, didn't even look back before opening the huge door and leaping down five stories to point at a neon monstrosity. “Here we are! My old watering hole, New Kansas Bar!”