Corvayne summoned a Lythandies seed and tucked it into the shredded garment Lady Blood Claw was wearing, then threw LBC on his back. He took a deep breath, then started marching into the wall of rain that had overtaken the formerly dry plains. Visibility was down to feet rather then the miles it had been before. He hadn't realized how hot he was until the rain hit him, skin steaming as it furiously regenerated and was washed clean of grit and blood.
"Gylwin, what's our status?" He spoke aloud, not even bothering trying to bury it in [[Unity]] as he was trying to split his regeneration to keep Lady Blood Claw going. She was practically pouring a trail of blood after them.
A worm wiggled it's way off one of Lady Blood Claw's vibrant branches. "I've got everyone safe. Four targets down. I suspect they were Red Stripe cultivators with bio-weapon builds. Mosh and June moved to a safe spot, the enemy is a monster or person who is negative 2 dimensional stalker. Sect is fighting it now. Juggernaut ate the assassin they sent."
"Did they go after the sect too?"
"They probably have a method of spawning named monsters. [[Growth]] might have made it worse. Are you worried about Miss Acting Sect Leader Most Glorious Rio?"
"I'd like to know if she knew." It might be time to go completely off-grid if they wouldn't let him out of jail to actually get work done.
The rain should have made it hard to navigate, but he just compass pointed his way towards the nearest truck. The ditches they had been expanded quickly flooded with raging water.
The first camp they came upon looked hastily abandoned. Corvayne looked around for any signs of life aside from the workers who had followed him. He guessed a few died, and from signs of battle the rest struck a fighting retreat the wrong way for help. There were broken parts of walls, scattered tools, and a few vehicles that had been turned into scrap. Corvayne stored some of it, knowing that he might need materials to fix a truck in better condition.
Bayou sounded upset. "No survivors?"
Little Spur kicked the ground. "Churned dirt. Same sort of monster. Also signs of detonation near the pit. It was actual bomb monsters. Of course, just like the ones that killed the Red Strip sect."
"If they want revenge, the monsters are going to be the first part of an attack."
The young cultivator looked over, probably at some invisible figure feeding him info. "The real threat will be that second part. If we face a three-knot cultivator, we will be swiftly destroyed."
Corvayne had sort of picked up some of the terms. "Is that Whiskey Refinement stage?"
"No. I think we have even odds even against a Whiskey Refiner up to fifth saddle. I'm referring to Nace-” He coughed. “I'm of course referring to Smoked Mesquite Soul.”
Bayou trembled a little. “If we run into a Smoked Mesquite, we won't even know we are dead before it happens.”
“What's Rio?”
“She is Ranch Domain, a step up.”
Was she holding back? “I guess those guys that started shit at the bar were two knot or whiskey..?”
“Hard to say. Definitely... Cowpoke Core?”
Bayou noticed something but Corvayne wasn't keen on what, just there was an 'ah-ha' moment. “Cattle-Qi Gathering.”
Corvayne looked back. “I'm guessing most of us are considered whatever the lowest level is. Saddle-Sore-Strengthing?”
“I dislike that name.” Little Spur cultivated a wad of spit, and bent over to pull a bloody cowboy hat and fit it on his head. Corvayne missed his cloak immensely.
Bayou pulled her tablet out and Corvayne could see her hand shaking as she spoke to herself then typed 2216 into the device, which buzzed. “You not used to fighting?”
“I can fight!” She asserted.
Little Spur nodded. “If it seems like we have no fear, it's because we've mastered it.”
Corvayne smirked. “Or seen fates worse then death, such as living a life not worth living.” He shifted how he was standing. “...That and learning what rain and jelly mixing in my drawers feels like.”
The next camp had bodies, both monster and cultivator. Robes and cowboy hats were flung about, some of them suggesting the inhabitants were ripped out of them. But some of the human bodies had holes in them, and not the type a pissed off Six-Horn got up to.
Corvayne felt hostile intent and pulled Bayou to the ground, Little Spur already diving into the mud as the anticlimactic ping of a single bullet hitting metal sounded. [[Understanding]] told him there was some sort of force multiplier going on, as most cultivators would not die even with a dozen holes in them.
Looking a bit above where his heart would have been had he not dropped behind a muddy tire, he looked at the hole. It looked like a normal bullet hole, but there was a weird clarity to the hole. It was a line, but also a plane? If he got hit, it would be like someone swinging an executioner's axe through him. He felt Bayou shifting to cover her ears. He rolled off her, then tapped her shoulder and started crawling to the wreckage of a truck. It was half the size of Big Red Bramble's monstrosity, so it was basically enough cover to hide a football team.
“Be careful, whatever is shooting us is stronger then a regular gun.”
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Little Spur and Bayou both looked at him with enough disbelief that it practically shone through the mud on their faces. Bayou actually stuttered. “Y-y-you mean, like the GUNS this sect is known for?”
Corvayne felt a little sheepish. “I suppose you two would know better then me.”
Little Spur nudged her. “To enlighten our current strongest team member: They do dimensional damage. It's difficult to explain why, but it only takes a little to kill even seasoned cultivators.”
Gylwin was speaking through her worm. “Because it's essentially like a paperdoll of timelines, it folds you, then drives a pencil through all the dolls. If ten cowboys do that to ten spots on the doll, it turns the person into Swiss cheese. The gun is hundreds of guns slightly mis-aligned in essence.”
Corvayne thought about what she said. “Swiss cheese... the one with the holes?”
“The very same, Corvayne.”
Corvayne didn't like the sound of that. “So... is there a counter?”
“Yes. Leave everyone else here, advance on his position, and try not to get shot. Use something that locks timelines together also means it becomes a regular gun.”
Someone cleared her throat. It was the tiny worm, and it was certainly loud enough that everyone was looking at Corvayne's shoulder.
Gylwin spoke slowly to try to keep herself heard over the occasional gunfire “Or let me take care of it. The idea was to get stronger here, but isn't your real goal to protect your family?”
Corvayne stopped. “I can't do that if I'm cursed. The Magus tracked me down and tried to kill me.” And hurt LBC. Bad. Maybe forever if they couldn't find a way to break the tree curse.
Little Spur nodded. “In the end, you need to be strong to not be forced into such situations.”
Bayou on the other hand tugged Corvayne's sleeve, looking him in the eyes when he turned. “Don't take it for granted.”
He thought about it a little, ignoring a probing shot that broke a truck's rear-view mirror a few feet above where he was crouched. There were probably billions of other groups just like this one he could try to infiltrate and pilfer, and some would not have a weird antagonistic patron sect from higher floors trying to blow his brains all over the mud.
In the end, Lady Blood Claw groaning made up his mind. He tried to think if he had ever been pinned down and had to charge a sniper. Possibly. It might be a new experience.
“I'm going to summon shadows and move to the next bit of cover. Throw something the other way.”
He didn't wait too long, throwing shadow hands all directions and using chain hands to fire them off in weird directions, then he picked one at random to [Flows-Like-Water] along, rain possibly tripling the normal length of the move as he dove into mud, moving through it like it was water... he had forgotten the pants had that trait!
A bullet narrowly missed him but also somehow got him six spots in his arm as he rolled behind a tipped over trailer. A dead cowtivator was laying face down in the mud, but shockingly a live one had a gun pointed at his head. She radiated fear, so Corvayne held his hands up, meeting the mud stained woman's eyes.
“I'm trying to kill that guy, do you know where he's firing from?”
A bullet tore through the trailer but missed them. There was just the sound of rain as the gun wavered a little. Finally she spoke. “There's a few trees near a stream, I think that's it.”
Corvayne nodded. “Great. I'm going to go kill them now.” He used a shadow hand to drag three objects from the tipped over trailer – a set of boots, a frying pan, and a pretty nice gun rack. A shame Corvayne did not have a gun on him, it would probably look nice on the rack. He switched to [[Strength]] and hurled the objects above the trailer, then dove into the mud and cut across the ground like a shark. On a whim he spun, emulating the mole until he was in the water. There was no gunfire, so hopefully he had snuck into the water unseen. He started pulling himself against a torrent of muddy water.
He felt his lungs start to protest and so he decided to have a moment of truth to his plan, throwing his head into the mud and taking a big breath. The feeling was incredibly disgusting, but just as the pants said he was able to fill his lungs with sludge then exhale it into the water.
It spurred him on, pulling himself against the current as he pulled his way through the stream. There was enough mud on the bottom to keep triggering the pants free movement until he felt the stream level out, and emerged from a pond on top of a hill that was being filled by waterfall sputtering in the wind and rain. It must be runoff from another layer.
He saw a man in a poncho by a tree barely outlined in by the faintest line of gray, and Corvayne with a bit of thunder could make out the gun in his hand, gleaming before it was dark, then a crack as he shot back at the ruined camp, rolling it open to reload with casual perfection borne from practice. Corvayne moved at the same time the last bullet entered the chamber, spear flying into his hands as he activated [Cross Skill: Backbiter] and slammed a black crystal maw into the mans back.
For a moment he was looking at a hole in the attacker, dripping thick gore, then a metal blacksmith plate dropped and the damage was gone. Corvayne only hesitated a moment as the man swung around, falling into the mud then rolling on his side to get behind the man and grab his leg.
A mistake, as the man kicked him into the air in a moment and fanned the hammer, five bullets missing and one hitting Corvayne right in the chest. In a moment he felt hundreds of wounds open inside him, the single bullet chewing out a tree of damage while only making a tiny hole. [[Vitality]] saved him as he flopped back into the mud face down.
He tried to get up but the man slammed a boot into Corvayne's head and forced his head under the mud.
Corvayne switched to confusion and panic, pretending that he was suffocating and trying to knock the iron leg off him, then let his grip go weaker even as he felt the wounds mending and took a sly breath of mud.
“Pathetic.” Corvayne heard and he used that to twitch and still. The boot lessened, and Corvayne sank into the mud, again, then surged as he caught the click of the man reloading.
[Cross Skill: Backbiter] tore chunks out of the man, undoing some of the damage Corvayne had taken. As quick as a snake and trailing water as almost a quantum engine, the man reloaded as another blacksmith's plate fell from his poncho. Corvayne used [Juxtapose] as the man fanned the hammer again, then spun a step back as the man pulled a curved sheep gutting knife and twisted to try to catch Corvayne with it. Corvayne threw a line of shadows right at the gunfighters eyes, then called shadows down onto him.
A direct hit sent mud flying everywhere, but the fellow shook it off and pulled out another six shooter as the first one wound backwards in time to reload. Corvayne imagined Seru throwing a dice with arrows on it and lunged the direction the arrow told him to go, crossing forward and into the mans gun. Yet, for some reason, the bullet that hit him just knicked a rib rather then blasting his side like a ripe watermelon, as he had been sure it would. He imagined Gygax rolling a huge dice, all sorts of sides, and he followed the random arrows it kept giving him, sometimes getting hit by barrages of bullets but never taking a serious hit.
The man looked stunned and threw a flashbomb, but Corvayne could feel his annoyance and did a low leap as he shed gravity, then pulled it back in as his knee clipped the back of the man's head like a bowling ball, sending them both tumbling down the muddy hill. Corvayne switched to [[Agility]] and while his wounds were suddenly throbbing in pain, he used the moment to reach under the mans poncho and undo the furnace plate.
The man landed on his feet, clearly some form of superior cultivator, and produced another loaded gun and unloaded a full clip into Corvayne, but barely did any damage. Gygax had somehow helped him desync. The man seemed to realize something too and clicked something, a light coming to life in the rain further down the next hill.
Corvayne guessed he had desynced by adding variables into his movement, and if the man went to a point where every Corvayne had to follow, the gun would start shredding him again as timelines overlapped.
The man realized this, aiming for Corvayne's legs even as Corvayne used [Flows-Like-Water] to fly up and over, then used [Leap Strike] to cause part of the slope they were on to melt and splattering grit everywhere, but not catching him.
If the man got away, he'd have to go back to where LBC was, then they'd be fully lined up and-
Corvayne felt like his pants were full for some reason, and saw the jelly from it rising in liquid circles, forming little spheres that formed something like a pink glowing ring around him. Did getting hit in another timeline count? He had better get rid of it.
On a whim he clenched his legs, as he thought that's how it activated, then mentally imagined them pelting the guy as he ran.
The jam swirled and grew, a torrent of pink, purple, and red forming orbs before thousands shot out at the light.
The man turned and smirked as Corvayne used a boot to tip up the life-saving metal door. Corvayne couldn't tell if the man went from cocky to frowning by sight, but that's what he felt through [[Unity]] before hundreds of projectiles slammed into him and the light, breaking it and practically burying him in mud and jelly. Lightning lit up a single hand reaching up, fingers curled in rigor mortis. Corvayne took his time walking over, using [[Vitality]] to start closing holes other Corvayne had taken and failed to heal. Weirdly, he thought he could feel a little bit of himself in a line for a moment. All of them were working on patching holes in themselves.
Corvayne snapped back into one as he reached down and pulled out a gun belt and poncho from the gore, molten strawberries, and mud. He thought about it, and dug and took the man's hat.
Corvayne looked around to make sure no one was there. It was for the curse, after all. There was no evidence it would be habit forming, and he'd never do it when someone else was around.
He tipped his hat to the man's makeshift grave. “Looks like you really got yourself... in a jam.”