Corvayne pulled himself out from under the vehicle and stood up, getting a face full of rain. Not that it mattered, he was already fully soaked and caked in sapping cold mud.
"Punch it!"
Lepin Lizzy twisted the key and after some groaning the engine purred to life on the pickup. Corvayne helped Bayou and Little Spur heft the last crates of supplies into the bed of the truck, then got into the back door of the cab, next to where they had wrapped Lady Blood Claw in most of the remaining dry blankets. The cab was steamy as opposed to soaked and cold, so a massive improvement. Less thanks to his mechanical skills and more to placing the heated blade in the third seat in the back. He leaned over and shifted it both to avoid setting the seat on fire (it was a little melted, oops) and to wrap his clammy fingers around it's refreshingly searing metal handle.
Bayou got in and Little spur was last. He had taken a cut from a pair of monsters that had attacked right as Corvayne had been fighting the sniper. Corvayne was trying to think of a way to offer mending to the young man, but Bayou instead was fussing over him as Lepin took over driving. He instead took the time to try to figure out how his wounds were lingering, Mend was struggling to worm it's way into what felt like rabbit holes in him despite there being very little physical damage.
He eventually gave up. His progress was limited, and LBC needed attention in the form of clipping branches and healing wounds when the plants coming out of her got too close or went through something important. She was shivering, so Corvayne took his pancho and put it over her, at least until her branches knocked it off and he needed to clip them again.
They kept driving through camps, most of them packed with various monster and cultivator corpses. Giant moles, fanged things that looked like tumble weeds, giant jackalopes with flaming antlers that created billowing clouds of steam in the rain. He didn't think there were survivors, much of the camps looking like tatters littered with parts of trucks and sometimes the foundation of a knocked over cabin sinking into the mud.
"Do you know where we are going?" Corvayne asked the cowtivator driving and currently only other living person he had seen or felt through [[Unity]].
"I know I'm going towards home, so well enough." She had to slow the truck down as they came to another broken bridge with water pouring past it. "We look for a shallow point and ford it."
"Let me know if you want directions. I have a skill."
The girl barked a laugh. "Okay. Safest route back to the sect."
"Hard Left."
She started to turn the wheel and stopped. "That's into the river!"
"It doesn't lie." Corvayne shrugged.
Lepin stared at him, then without looking away hit the gas and jerked the wheel, sending the truck barreling down the ditch into the rushing water. Bayou started yelling and Little Spur looked about halfway between laughing and crying, but the huge wheels caused the truck to stay above the raging water, with a little help from Gravity.
"Looks like I fitted the doors perfectly. No leaks."
Lepin raised an eyebrow. "I have to see how you look without mud all over you." She said, enunciating every word before she turned back in her seat to look forward. "Let me know when to turn." She then flipped a cowboy hat over her face.
The compass was telling him to do nothing, so rather then nap like their driver, or huddle together like Bayou was now with Little Spur, Corvayne instead worked on mending Lady Blood Claw, a sort of weird dance between snipping branches using [Cross Skill: Reap] with his fingers as a pair of scissors and closing the wounds that they left. He saved the wood in his holdout ring because, well, it had a nice cherry color to it likely from sucking up blood.
It was a few hours of drifting before Corvayne gave Lizzy a bump on the shoulder. "Steer Right."
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She looked at him like he was crazy but turned the wheels, which in turn pushed the truck left and caused it to bump into a sandbar.
"Floor it." Corvayne said, applying gravity to help lift the car up the bank and out of the river... in the middle of nowhere.
"Why?"
"It's telling me the safest route. Straighten the wheels out and then slight left."
The Cowtivator shrugged and did so, following matted down grass that started to sound like gravel as the truck rolled into the dark, headlights showing rain and more rain and then the slope of two hills. There was not enough lightning nearby to catch more then hints of the terrain, but as they drove suddenly the rain stopped as they ended up in a cavern, the rocky expanse slick with water and almost immediately too small to keep driving.
In a gap in the rocks, Corvayne could see a swirling purple portal lined by a door made of green hands interlinked. On the wall next to it was a plaque – 'Hop on one foot for three of the five floors, and gain a power that will put a spring in your step! - Sage of Skills.'
“Forward is the safe way.”
Lepin paused, turning the truck off. “You found an instance. There's no way that's the safest way.”
“Huh, you mean a door? They lead to other versions of the floor-”
Little Spur coughed. “Oh no, it's a hidden realm not a.... heavenly cow path.”
“It's telling me it's both the safest place and safest path back to the Sect.”
“Not home?”
Corvayne thought about it. “I feel one home got trashed, the other is... well, yes all of it.”
He gingerly trimmed LBC's branches and mended enough of her jumpsuit that she wasn't flashing anyone, and placed her on his back.
Lepin got out of the truck and he could see she was still shaky on her legs, even after he had helped patch them up. The jeans she was wearing were much harder to mend, being some sort of magic item. Corvayne tried not to stare too much at her thighs as everyone got out.
“I don't think the Sect knows about this, we would have built a structure to keep people out.”
Gylwin's worm piped up with [[Unity]]. 'If it's telling you to go in, you should move. Chances are, that means someone on the floor has a way of tracking you.'
'Was anything else as bad as this?'
'The inverse 2 dimensional monster did a ton of damage, but now that I've looked at the number of camps... there must have been more then ten agents who can control or lure monsters in.'
Corvayne tried not to look at Bayou. She did have some sort of monster affinity built into her build, one that let her groom even the more cranky stable monsters. He dismissed it: She was trying to put up a brave front, but he could feel fear from her. Little Spur was much more composed but with hints of pain. Part of Little Spur was worried but there was also a feeling of anticipation as he looked at the portal ahead.
“It's telling me inside.” Corvayne said, breath misting even as he pulled Lady Blood Claws lava sword closer. The wind outside was blowing cold wet air into the cave. Once more he missed both the desert and Cascadia's more temperate climate. That and floor 3's perfect weather.
“Can you be steered wrong?”
Corvayne thought about it then on a whim turned and asked the compass to find Lepin, behind him, then both Little Spur to his right ahead (it spun a few times before pointing at him, oddly) and Bayou to the left, then Lady Blood Claw on his back. All correct. He pointed the compass at 'what was hunting them' and it wavered about fifty degrees in a random direction out in the rain, but when he turned it kept the same general bearing.
“Maybe but it also thinks there's something hunting for us.” He could track Gylwin through [[Unity]] and double checked with Compass, both of them jerking this way and that in unison. “I don't know what is after us nor why. It may be my fault. I suspect a super wizard is sending his girlfriends to try to cut my head off.”
Lepin snorted. “Delusional.”
Corvayne gave her an even look. “They successfully did so, once.”
Her waning attention re-affirmed itself. “Need to hear that one over drinks.”
Little Spur took a deep breath. “Portal, or unknown threat. Do you know for sure if your Compass assesses it correctly?”
Gylwin laughed in his mind. 'This tower is pretty much built on exceptions and it's infinite. That said something managed to badly damage one of my spare bodies.'
Corvayne didn't respond but then remembered the original question and shook his head at Spur.
“Can we make it through? These are elite challenges. I was warned if I saw one they were certain death.” Bayou took Little Spur's sleeve with a hand and he wrapped an arm around her. Corvayne guessed from [[Understanding]] that if they were not in mortal peril they'd be hooking up right now. And maybe despite that they would anyway.
Corvayne cleared his mind about images of robes flying off and concentrated instead on applying [[Unity]] to formalize a party. Lepin Lizzy was level 93, with both his other allies in the fifties, which was low. Plenty of time to bring it up to LBC's 298, though that big number was in a coma and would be dead if not for him shunting off regeneration her way. “If we can kill one thing? I'm pretty sure we'll manage.”
Little Spur was looking off to the side, but his likely invisible mentor had no advice that the man passed on.
Corvayne gave him at least a minute of clearly nodding at someone who wasn't there before he decided to get it over with. He stepped forward to stand before the purple portal framed by green jade hands, seeing an orange lock on it. No turning around. He heard Bayou's teeth chattering, and Lizzy was now next to him, pressing her side into Lady Blood Claws sheathed blade.
“Do we know anything about these subspaces? Are there patterns for ones on this floor?” He flexed his wet socks inside his boots.
Gylwin gave him something that felt like a mental shrug. 'I say hop in there, worse case you bunker down and I come in after your family and friends are safe.'
Lepin answered his question, not aware of his invisible council. “Totally unknown. It can have any number of sub floors, any size, some have monsters and a boss, some don't. We could walk into empty air and fall forever, or step onto the surface of a star and be instantly cooked.”
“Sold.” Corvayne stepped through.