Corvayne returned to his cell at the Sect, the guards looking askance at him as he walked in without Rio there to escort him.

“You can close it or not, I'm going to get dragged out on a punishment duty soon.”

“More then shoveling shit?” One of the guards asked. He noticed they had put on clothes more fitting for guard duty rather then cheer-leading.

“I guess.” Corvayne had a lot to digest.

Rio had briskly gone over the Sects woes, balanced with twin carrots of seeing his family and more information on the sect leader dangling. Going up to the central mountain was forbidden, as both they did not want a foolish person interrupting the sect leaders seclusion, and the palace of meditation was locked down with fiendish traps and spiritual guardians.

Corvayne put it nearly the top of his list of places he wanted to jab at, but he wasn't ready to cash in the effects of his [[Unity]] link.

Anyway, Acting Sect leader Rio had dumped a lot of problems out all at once. Something like what Bayou had seen in the stables around Bombshell – Unusual accidents that harmed or killed people who were far too high level for it to make sense, out of depth monsters appearing in areas that should be impossible to spawn in, and a sharp uptick in murders that often had no connecting rhyme or reason, but more importantly no witnesses.

He had a good three minutes to ponder how he was going to investigate while he was jailed or shoveling shit when what he considered a capital C Cowboy walked in. Spurs, hat, six shooter, thousand yard stare.

His name was 'Night Rider' which had sent a waver of spiderly amusement through [[Unity]] from Gylwin, but Corvayne could feel the mistrust and dislike coming out of every pore of the man that wasn't covered in five-o-clock shadow.

There was a single flick of the head and the man watched Corvayne walk back out of the cell.

“The neck ring doesn't work, or the suppressor.” It's possible the man was asking him a question, but Corvayne couldn't be sure.

He took a step around Night Rider, who had eyes following him like a hawk, a curled lip, and his hand rock steady in a position to draw the six shooter strapped to his hip. “They don't work, yet I'm still in my cell every night.”

Two more sect members, bald guys in robes with six shooters, herded him into a truck clearly used to move normal sized cattle both from it's wood-box setup and from the cowpies that covered the bed.. There were a few other shit shovelers clinging to the cleanest parts of the truck desperately, which as it lurched to a start Corvayne found himself joining.

Bayou had failed to find a good spot to stand and was staring glumly at the jade tablet in her hand. Little Spur looked like someone had socked him in the face.

“Junior greets senior cheater.” He gave a little bow as best he good while trying not to get slammed into the side of the truck. “We are being punished without blame for the death of those Red Line disciples. If there was justice, it would be the opposite.”

“The guy in charge of us has a chip on his shoulder... and I'm antsy to start getting my folks back together.”

Little Spur nodded. “If your ability holds true, you can overcome the biggest obstacle, which is that you know where they are.”

Bayou looked up. “At least the people you care about can still be reached.”

“Sorry miss.” Corvayne said. “Maybe we can find you closure.” He wasn't sure he was a 'revenge' guy, which prompted him to think about killing the Raven. Huh. Maybe he was a revenge guy. He certainly was planning to kill the Magus because of what he did to Lady Blood Claw.

He missed Lady Blood Claw. And Spears. And Bell. Preshe... and everyone.

Little Spur put a hand on her shoulder. “And after that, your friend would wish you to live on.”

Corvayne nodded, then watched the buildings fly by. The majority of the sect looked flat, aside from the central mountain, but out of nowhere it felt like vibrant forests would pop up out of the dusty plains before vanishing in a moment, or they'd be rolling uphill then on flat ground again. Corvayne was pretty sure there was a skill or that the truck was enchanted, a subtle sense of space blurring.

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The destination was on the far side of mountains, a hilly stretch with yellow grass and dark green spots for the rare plant. The cold air here was shimmering in spots where the sun seemed to catch every gleaming shovel and spade that shirtless men and nearly shirtless women were using to dig what looked to be a massive ditch. The tools gleamed in places where the brown earth met deep gray clouds heralding a distant storm.

The truck kept going past scattered groups, the ditch itself branching into what looked like a network of multi-mile gouges in the ground. Perhaps they were digging a canal or irrigation system, but the lack of heavy equipment as well as the lack of an obvious goal had him guessing.

There were camps and wood bridges and trucks that looked like they had generators... but no signs of anything more substantial. making him think instead that they were some sort of fortification, one that didn't make sense.

The truck stopped and a moment later the bald 'enforcer' cowtivators were practically hurling them out of the truck. Corvayne managed to stay on his feet, only to find a canvas sack flying into his face. He caught it and the metal contents threw enough force into him that he stumbled. The single second the entire exchange took and the truck was gone, leaving him with a few other would-be stablehands standing at the end of what he'd have assumed was a dry creek bed.

It was odd that no enforcers were left behind, but he guessed the truck wouldn't come back until they hit some critical threshold of dirt moved.

Corvayne pulled a shovel out of the sack and started digging.

He guessed that somewhere they were being watched, but after a while even the potential fear of enforcers was dulled by the monotony of the work.

One man, who had been in charge of driving tractors of hay around, paused and rested on his shovel.

“What are we doing?”

Little Spur was huffing. “I suspect we are digging a ditch.”

Bayou huffed. “Geomancy.” The girl had taken off her outer robes revealing work pants and a tank top. Corvayne turned back to focusing on moving dirt.

Another man snorted. “What do you know brush girl?”

Bayou gave him the finger. “You are trying to join this sect and you don't know how it functions? What are you hoping to do?”

Him and his friend looked at each other. “Fire some guns. Ride swords. Lasso a wife.”

“Tch. You won't catch a horsefly with that load of shit.” She snapped back, then turned away to try unlocking the jade tablet again. Corvayne had a thought that maybe Mosh could help her with it.

Little Spur looked at his shovel thoughtfully. “So it's a ritual?”

Bayou spit in annoyance and put the still locked jade tablet away. “Potential and intent. They put effort into the earth just like pushing a boulder up a hill makes it ready to roll back down.”

Another woman, tall and reedy, had a sour look. “So it's not just a pointless punishment?”

“Only insomuch as us, without shovel skills, can't infuse much power into the earth, and we are not moving much ground either. The ditch needs to be wider as well.”

Little Spur rubbed his chin. “You should explain it. Perhaps it will help our work progress faster.”

Bayou looked annoyed. “Right. Most of you are sort of... new. The Sect's grounds are blessed by the heavens with great vitality. The earth under our feet has mineral and elemental ores that are ideal for creating magic firearms. There's some set of modifiers on the floor that lets us refine elements even further with the beasts we have.”

Corvayne thought about what Gylwin had told him. “So the shit job we had... we are using Big Bessie, for example, as a refiner for elemental crops?”

“You feed impure elemental hay and she craps out fertilizer that's has a better chance of infusing that hay with elements. You eventually feed them to cattle and butcher them for horns and meat with high grade elemental properties, the kind you can't find under high floors usually. The essence leftovers are basically a volatile explosive.”

Corvayne could see it. “I bet there's something else they can get locally that makes it act like gunpowder, and basically turns the slug into an elemental delivery system.”

Little Spur nodded. “Perhaps there is a psudo-elemental that pervades the area. Something like 'Riding' that means they produce mounts such as the swords that are a cut above.”

Some of this sounded familiar from the files he had read from the Three Kings faction. “But I don't get the point of the ditch.”

“Every fifty years, there's a stampede. Untold numbers of huge beasts roll across the floor. The direction changes, so the idea is they raise a literal mountain to block and divert the monsters.”

At this point, even Corvayne had stopped digging. He looked down at the ditch. “So... there's some sort of bucket we are filling to set up the stampede being blocked by a mountain.”

“If you tell me we are 49.9 years past the last one I'm going to be very cross.”

Little Spur bowed. “Please spare humble disciple, elder martial brother!”

Corvayne saw that Bayou didn't look disturbed or worried.

The woman in fact snorted and leaned on her shovel. “Twenty three years. Trust me, this is about as useful as having us spend all day with nets trying to strain a river clean.”

The two guys, who were listening looked thoughtful. “But it's not a punishment unless we are directly impacted for NOT working. Otherwise it's just a waste of time.”

Corvayne glanced around but didn't spot Gylwin. He'd have liked some indication that he was making any progress at all.

There was a distant rumble of thunder. Corvayne could see now the imposing wall of gray he had thought was hundreds of miles out was closer to 15. The next crack of thunder was closer, perhaps within a pair of miles. The sun had gone away and the temperature dropped.

“I guess this is the real punishment.”

Little Spur groaned. “A storm snuck up on us?!”

Others were running back along the tire tracks the truck had left, probably looking to see if they could find a tent or at least one of the bridges. Corvayne didn't like their odds in a flash flood.

Bayou was incredulous. “They just left us out here! Like a fucking teenage prank!”

Corvayne felt there was something off about it. Night Rider didn't seem like he had much of a sense of humor. Almost as soon as he thought that, the distant sound of thunder were punctuated by a scream. Turning, he saw most of the workers who had been running away were now on their way back, scrambling away from a body falling to the ground, trailing blood. Something had killed the man in a moment.

Little Spur brandished his shovel like a spear. “Rather than a prank, it seems this is a murder.”