Corvayne spun around the lizard thing, using [Back Biter] to turn his bone knife into a jagged jaw. It didn't have time to react and as such lost most of it's neck, acid blood spaying out as Corvayne moved to his partner, using [Shadow Steal] then his shadow limbs to quickly dispatch the monster as it turned. He was getting very used to using [[Unity]] to direct Lady Blood Claw's vines in place of his cloak.
His ambush left the creature pale, save for where it leaked black goo from the dozens of holes. His hand, and they assisted him by grabbing the other body and dragging it into an acid worn tunnel. He had a few minutes before the next burst of rain, so he quickly started searching the bodies. He found what he had been looking for, a green metal knife. As much as the bone knives worked for backbiter, they had a tendency to break. If he had a grip, he'd try to use black crystal to make a blade, but it seemed like the material kept slicing everything he found, even with Lythandies fudging the process of bonding it to something he could hold.
Some more lime flavored rations. He was getting pretty sick of lime. Still, they were wrapped and slightly less acidic than the meat and everything else. No boots, but they had feet wraps that were acid resistant. As well as the material their suits were made of. No rings but one of them had enchanted dog-tags and of course, more waterguns. He discarded the guns and just stored the ammo. He had started to get a sense for which ones were enchanted, and while not terribly useful against the acid resistant enemies in this sub dungeon, he was sure at some point he'd find something to try melting with them. He had refrained from taking a hit to see how powerful they were: he had seen it further erode the already melted structure of the dungeon.
The most important items were consumable. Grenades, sadly once again acid water balloons. He guessed from the fleshy bumps they might be acid monster eggs but they exploded when thrown. Again, not useful here. More importantly, a wealth of potions. It seemed like each of the lizards had two to three on them, a few of them healing potions in syringes, the other potions in clear egg-shaped containers. They couldn't be opened but were edible. They tasted like snot but potions were potions. Granted, finding out the deep green was a potion of extremely acid had somewhat soured him on biting into one.
Done looting, he pulled the bodies up the rounded tunnel, finding a small pipe half encrusted in brown grime. Clearing the green metal off and giving the grate a kick, he stuffed the bodies in, then replaced it and used mend to seal the metal off. The next rain would dissolve even the lizards.
He thought for a little bit, then turned and cleared the crust from the next pipe, then turned to his helper.
"Want to check it?"
The little yellow rabbit-slime-bug clicked it's pincers and blinked it's beady black eyes, then it pulled it's ears back and wiggled through the grate. They had seven hours or so before the next rain, so he was confident, even given the ever increasing patrols, they'd make it back to where he had hidden his cultivator charges.
Little Spur was awake at this point at least, so they were not completely defenseless, but... he didn't want to tarry too long.
While he waited for the rabbit to scout, he started the process of breaking down and knitting back together the rubber suits for humans to wear. Granted, he was pretty sure his "backpack" would just tear hers apart again, but he needed to keep building things to keep Lythandies happy. Especially since he had pulled a few seeds out of... where ever he summoned them from to keep his allies cultivation bushes.
"Anything?" He asked a while later, using a black crystal gingerly held to sharpen his bone knife and turn the rib into a crude needle, then worked on using sinew to bind the pieces together. It helped for some reason with using the goddess-granted crafting skills to do as many steps as possible. It made him miss having Mosh helping him. The little goblin skipped a lot of steps.
He missed a lot of people.
There was a rustle from the pipe, dropping an amulet. Corvayne used a shadow hand to snake in and grab it. It was covered in the same brown gunk that much of the acid left, but it's emerald surface was untouched once he rubbed it off, gleaming even as the corrosive gunk burned his thumb.
"Nice work." He wiped his hand on one of his furs, the sulfurous smell quickly overwhelmed again by the citrus scent that enveloped the floor they were on. It might just be some side effect from burning and regrowing his nose a few times, but he also guessed there was a [Lime] tag. His [[Tower]] ability was just giving him the floor 43 descriptors: (Scrubland)(Geographic clusters)(Mountains)(Monster Stampede)(Titanic)(Rare resources)(Changing sky)(Domestic monsters).
He heard some scraping, then the clatter of something falling. A bronze rimmed chest.
“Excellent job.” Did it have more eyes than last time he counted? Six?
It hummed happily, pushing the chest to the entrance to the pipe, then scurrying back. Corvayne used his shadow hands to pull it out, then used them to check for traps, pushing it away and flipping it open.
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No traps, but what looked like orange socks made from snot, boots made of blue viper scales, and a black rod that seemed to absorb light. Picking it up, it felt especially solid while being freezing cold to the touch.
Also, a selection of standard glass potions, and what looked like a few bags of rice. He stored it faster than anything else, worried if he left it in the air for a second more the mundane packaging would fall apart. There were coins of a green material, showing a weeping queen. He tried dipping one in acid, and pulling it out saw it didn't lose it's gleam.
Might be handy, and he had lots of room in his holdout ring. The rabbit returned with one more object, a jar with what looked like leeches swirling in it. Corvayne was pretty sure he did NOT want to open it until he got a reading on it. He kept thinking back to a movie involving a parasitic penis creature that gestated in rib cages.
Storing it, he saw the rabbit come back with lunch squirming in it's cute jaws. There was some squeaking, from either it or it's prey, then quiet by the time he was cloaked back up. Lady Blood Claw stirred a little on his back as [[Unity]] coaxed her skill out. Corvayne hoped she woke up again soon, but as long as she was asleep he didn't feel as much pain through the link.
The shell of wood changed colors, blurring him into the greens of the dungeon as he used Gravity to move up the wall and back into the main screw shaped tower. Below him, lizard guards moved in patrols, some alone some in groups of five. None of them looked, but Corvayne moved slow anyway, keeping the mass of the vines as a dome against the ceiling, gently folding the mass when they needed to navigate around support arches or chandlers caked with grime. Most of the light came from outside, where he could look down into swelling masses of acid clouds.
His 'exit' bridge had a number of statues nearby looming over the arch that marked the covered bridge, so he had spots to wait for the patrols to wander away. Once the coast was clear he dropped, landing softly thanks to gravity, then stalked into the hall. He rubbed a spot that was slowing healing on his jaw as he looked for regrowing silver mines: The living traps could leak through tiny cracks in the walls, and possibly was something that coalesced in the air. Satisfied, he moved towards the makeshift garden he had grown. Both sides of the bridge's arches were now lined with rows of red spheres of vine, as well as a few between the center pillars. No lizards came to investigate the change, and wandering monsters seemed to now ignore the bushes as well. Something alone in a corner stood out, a hundred things in a row out in the open seemed perfectly normal.
He strolled up to one of the ones on the left and knocked. Little Spur peered through a small gap then opened the sphere up. He looked badly burnt, hair missing, eyes lined with dark circles, and much of his mass gone. It didn't look like the inspiration he claimed powered him up. Given the blotches of color on him not getting fixed, it seemed like the broken lines of his essence ended up doing more damage to him when he was forced to refine them.
“Ah, do not pity this poor child of the shovel. I'll still be able to scoop poop with these accursed arms.”
Corvayne had tried to help him with essence sight and mend, but he had butterfingers and caused the man tremendous pain just trying to gather the shards of his essence paths. In placing and gluing two fragments together he had pushed more apart. So much for trying to not have to send him to Preshe.
He was cooking boar, the smoke barely visible given all the acid hazes drifting through the structure.
“Anything good?”
Corvayne nodded, setting Lady Blood Claw off to the side and draping a jumpsuit knit blanket over her.
“Potions, more stuff I can use to make better gear than the hides... maybe some weapons. Gotta sit on them to check they are not cursed.”
“Sorry I cannot lend my fists. I had hoped that not directly cultivating might let me claw back... might help me overcome my constitution and begin climbing to the heavens.”
Corvayne thought about it. “There was a request someone had for a book called... ten thousand paths to power. Given the many systems I've seen, perhaps when one door closes, another opens.”
Little Spur pushed the spoon into the pot with a clatter. “Until a door opens, I am stuck.”
“When we are out of here, I'll try to open a door. That's all I can promise.” Corvayne was pretty sure Preshe could fix him, but could see the young man was hurting. He made a mental note to himself be careful about accidentally saying anything profound and forcing another inspiration. That said, he offered Little Spur a lime flavored ration, which he took.
“What about your own blockage?”
“Time, and effort. Doing things I don't normally do, but...”
“I've seen plenty of cultivators flip to demonic as they used any means to prolong their lives... or for raw power.”
Corvayne nodded. “I'm sure you meant Cowtivators, and yes. I want to be better than the people who put me where I am.”
The rabbit nudged Corvayne and he tightened the vines, holding up a finger. Little Spur made a single motion that extinguished the fire, then put the top on the pot as the vines reinforced, pluging the interior into darkness. Corvayne heard shuffling, pairs of clawed feet marching to the point he guessed hundreds were passing them away from the huge tower-screw, then quiet.
A minute passed and Corvayne risked opening a small slit to look out. It was quiet again.
“Danger, or an opportunity?”
“With the rains coming in about two hours, there's not enough time to capitalize on the main tower having less guards. I have confidence that the others will keep gaining power.”
“I'm more worried about your time frame. That and the hunter finding us. That and this dungeon possibly having other time mechanics that could kill us for dallying too long. That and just being discovered by the guards and triggering some sort of battle we cannot win.”
Corvayne didn't disagree, as he didn't want to find out how well the lizards fought in a fair fight. He checked the compass for the safest rout. It spun slowly, in a way he understood was 'stay put'. Well, he was going to do some scouting during the rain, mostly to try to see if he could move them to a safe place inside the screw. Some of that was why he was borrowing the rabbit and looking into the pipes: There were secrets in the marble and metal walls.
“How long do you think they will sleep for?”
“A few more days, and they are not asleep, they are furiously meditating.”
“I think that's an Oxymoron, Spur.” Corvayne resumed cooking, glancing over to Lady Blood Claw. His [[Unity]] bond hadn't reported any drastic changes in his friends, but it also seemed sluggish. He sent along hope they were okay, and love to Spears and Bell, as well as Preshe.
The rains came soon after dinner was done, torrents of acid pouring down. Soon, the screw would go from being a ramp with a stream of acid to a river with few islands. The guards and monsters in the screw-tower would hole up, waiting for it to pass. Somewhere in that screw were higher tier treasures. Ones they would need to outfit themselves and stand a chance at getting back to the Sect alive.
Corvayne grabbed the rubber he had been working into gear and started layering it, and then took a deep breath.
He asked his compass for the other word, opportunity, and felt it shift forward as he left the safety of the vines.