He put his running boots on, and felt compass start to find the best route to Spears. It was evening, and for a moment it considered the train station, but was somehow calculating a route through hills in the distance. He stretched his legs, then took off.
The path it wanted him to take had him veer off into what looked like a dirt path up to a cliff, but he tilted his head and saw a path. Tilting just a little bit, and the path was solid stone. A shortcut... and [[Understanding]] clicked it together. His pacts were slowly letting him see slightly more dimensions, including paths that normally were closed. Sort of like narrow eyes could see a little band, and as he opened them more and more came into view vertically. In this case, he guessed that just standing there and spinning in a circle there was a little bit more circle then just one rotation.
He set his compass to safest route, and it wavered a little, meaning either all of them were safe, or none of them.
He walked into the path, expecting the terrain to get weird, but instead it felt like another mountain road, a deer path that just barely had enough room for a person with a few places he felt like he was missing things as it twisted and turned through woods. In a few minutes he emerged from a passage between rocks that, glancing back, was just a forested ravine rather than a trail or even a cliff, shadowed from the pink setting sun.
These hidden paths were something he might use to keep Sect Master Rio busy if he found nothing else: Very likely most people could never see them, even if they knew they were there.
It wasn't just the mountains either. Walking down into the flat-lands, he found himself sometimes turning via compass to walk by posts that he hadn't seen, bridging two roads. He could see the mountains blur a little as he moved across condensed spaces. He slowed down a little as he moved through the areas, aware that if there was anyone else who used these spaces, they'd likely consider him a trespasser.
The goal seemed to be a large complex of lakes and buildings with pumps and other mechanical devices, laid out on a plateau. He was pretty sure he had ran fifty miles, but [[Unity]] also had made his stamina recover much faster, possibly because it was sharing and subtly multiplying everyone's regeneration. That or [[Growth]] meant his stats had gone up because of training. The pacts were weird, but he was happy for the help they had offered.
There were five moons lighting up the landscape, and he saw one tower with lights on that was his goal. Up close, he could see it was metal riveted together, with pipes everywher and what looked like a dozen different filtration systems.
A woman in blue robes with sapphire everything all over and wet hair opened the door, looked him up and down, sneered, and started to shut said door. Corvayne put his foot in the door and using gravity rooted it in place. Even when the woman tried slamming it again, [[Vitality]] made it immovable.
"Don't mind me, I'm here to see Spears. Mind if I come in? Thank you." He kept most of the amusement out of his voice. The woman tried to block him with arms outstretched, but he used [[Juxtapose]] to glide right past into what looked like a weird combination of house and workshop. All over were clothes, notes, and jars full of slimes and what looked like water elementals.
Corvayne followed the jars, going around a pass through into a kitchen, and down a hall lined and lit by shelves with glowing slimes. Most of them teal or blue, a few looking to be made of pink or red liquids. A stairway to a basement that smelled like musty books seemed to be the right pick, he could see a light on behind a door framed by shelves full of notes.
"Halt! You dare enter the mistress of aquatic-"
Corvayne just walked down the steps, opened the door and walked into a lab set up in what looked like an old pump facility, converted to something that looked like a slime zoo. Spears was there, of course, in one of the larger jars. She brightened up and waved, so Corvayne strode over and turned a pretty standard reinforcement array off. In a hot moment the jar shattered and Spears flowed out, coughing out some pretty gross looking slime that had given her a sickly lime coloration before throwing her arms around him.
"Rescue complete." He said, then winced as he felt attention from somewhere distant settle on him. He may need to remove a certain green fruit from his vocabulary. Behind him, he heard the tromping of someone coming down the stairs into the basement.
“You dare trespass-”
She started summoning water magic, so Corvayne threw a shadow at her, slapping her face and disrupting the spell, then moving to close in and put her in a headlock. The woman started struggling, spell form collapsing entirely as she paniced.
“Spears, what should I do with her?”
“I'd say put her in a jar... but she's not the problem. Her... boss is obsessed with me being 'made of pure water qi' or something.”
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“Right, well, let's ditch here and find you some fresh fruit and actual clean water.” He found himself angry. Gylwin had said that they were not taking care of her, but seeing how she looked tired and was looking away from him.
He moved from a headlock to an armlock. “I am very angry. Please give me a reason not to hurt you further. Or give me a reason to hurt you further.”
“You... huff... will... regret-”
He considered just breaking her neck, but instead used [Nerve Pinch] and dropped the woman like a sack of potatoes. He resisted the urge to kick her, though Spears took the opportunity.
“Are we finally leaving?”
“Had I been aware of exactly the conditions you were in, I'd have come sooner.” He kicked himself. What Bayou had been talking about was coming back around.
“Wait, before we go... steal all their notes. Some of it is actually useful. I might be able to abuse what they figured out on other slimes.”
Corvayne went on a looting spree then, taking notes and anything that seemed useful or valuable. He even opened the freezer and took all their steaks and sausages. Then, thinking about it, he smashed the slime jars, letting them loose. Might as well leave the door open too, right?
“Did she take your stuff?” Corvayne asked, and Spears shook her head. Compass gave him a direction, but he instead handed her his own spear for the moment, as well as a rubber suit.
“It smells like limes.”
“Do not say that word, please.” The hairs on his neck stood up. “It's a banned word now. Lemons is as close as we get.”
“Why?”
He started to think about it, and pressed down with [[Organization]], switching over to plans to get Spears-Like-Water into a hotel after liberating Bell. “I can't think about it.”
He stopped, and used compass to point to keys and a vehicle. He had to walk back inside and pull them off a board, then go out to a shack and open it. A flying sword with handlebars like a hog.
“Close enough to a hovercycle.” He thought and put the key into the handle and turned it, the sword popping into the air with the throaty purr of a non-existent diesel engine.
Spears wrapped her arms around him then went blob mode, leaving behind a lot of green crap that looked and smelled like mold before she settled around his neck.
“You okay?”
Spears wiggled, a nod. “I knew you'd come, they didn't really hurt me, just prodded for experiments and kept me locked up.”
Corvayne checked the sword and saw something that had a small essence link that he crushed, then glided over the water and straight for the direction his compass was pointing. There was an effect that blocked the wind on the sword, turning a few hundred miles an hour into a light breeze.
“I know Gylwin had the option of springing you, but I figure we'd better keep it in our pocket, I've got a deal with the sect leader. Acting Sect Leader Rio Blackfist. She said that I bear a striking resemblance to the Sect Leader in seclusion.”
“You think it's your father?” She asked.
“If we have another situation like the attacks, we fold and leave.”
“I get the feeling everyone is actually powering up here.” Spears added. “But once again I'm reduced to mini-blob form.”
“I'm going to find a bushel of apples and stuff them into you until you can't walk strai- until your back to top form.” He left unsaid then he was going to fuck her. She got it from how she was blushing.
The majority of the sect was barren grazing grounds. The path took them close enough to the cathedral that he could see lights on. He might go back and let Bessie know Bayou was okay – the titanic cow seemed to like her, a lot.
He could tell Gylwin had a clone following him on the ground, blinking around. It made him feel a little safer.
“I need to get us a new place to stay. I might see if Bell's had better luck.” Otherwise, he was going to dump some money on a place in the sect itself, or Neo Nashville. Or free Juggernaut.
“Is Preshe alright?”
Corvayne nodded. “She's going to have some complications, basically her and some of my new friends from the stables are grounded there.”
“Your link felt weird... what happened?”
Corvayne did his best to fill her in on the events on the punishment duty and the acid dimension. Of course, getting to the memory orb she gasped.
“You remember!!! Me, you, and... uh... I need one of those.”
“Waves Within basically treated you as a daughter. I guess I kinda learned something from him after all.”
She nudged him. “Like, the pointy end goes in your enemies?”
“No I mean with Preshe.... Also do you remember Cascadia?”
“FUCK!” She cried out, a wiggling psudopod reaching up to what he assumed was her forehead, as it was rubbing above where her eyes were.
“I take that as a 'sort of'.” Corvayne said, guiding the sword down at what looked like a stadium nestled in the foothills of the main mountain. He took a glance up at the misty peaks, then turned his focus back to the barracks as he collected the sword and flipped it onto his back.
Despite having a huge structure made of stone with banners and wood, it had a paved parking lot with lamps that wouldn't look out of place in Cascadia. Trailers were parked near the back, and he could see grills and cooking fires glowing and wafting smoke up, with robed folks in foam cowboy hats drinking beers.
The barracks had lights on, warm glow inviting. Compared to every other day, he had no issues getting directed to Bell's room by someone at the front desk. The stone building had very cold air in the halls. It felt more like a castle than anywhere else he had been in the sect. He suspected these were older buildings or possibly reused from the dungeon's own ruins, as they had a lot less of the parts he associated with more up to date builds.
Bell's door was on the second floor. Wood with metal, and a little wood peep hole like a knocked. A minute passed, and he felt her moving, then moving faster. Annoyance, connection, surprise, hunger. Well, not hunger: Corvayne felt himself smiling a little.
Bell opened the door in a robe. The air in the room was hot from a fire going, and he could see it was richly appointed, with bowls of fruit, hanging tapestries, plush furniture, bottles of wine, even a tray with meat on it. He only had a moment to take it all in before Bell grabbed him and pushed her lips into his.
He didn't have a chance to say he missed her, or anything else as she started pulling him along, mouth locked on his while one one of her legs kept hitting his side until he got the picture and picked her up. Spears grumbled as she slipped off his neck, but she gamely shut the door after them and then bounced over to the bathroom with a bowl of fruit as Corvayne guided Bell to a huge bed covered in furs.