Corvayne had long ago accepted that adventure often, after lengthy bouts of spear-work, lead people to odd jobs and circumstances. Including waking up early to get ready to go to a car-fixing job that was a cover for spying. Including pulling himself out of a bed that looked like a war zone while prying his princess lover's arms off his. Including opening the door wrapped in a cheetah blanket to let a series of servants deliver rather excessive breakfast with four different types of meat and fruit and grains and some lunch food sneaking it at the end.
Bell glared at him, sensing the unasked question. "I burn a LOT of energy cultivating!"
He was pretty sure her chest got bigger, but let it slide as she curled up in a blanket and started gnawing on eggs mixed with gyro meat. He grimaced that she had them bring pine needle tea, then went and showered up. Spears tagged along, squeezing out more grime and crud that tainted the water a sort of olive color he associated with mixing every paint together. He sprayed the tiles of the shower off before he exited, sure that it would piss Bell off if he left uncapital slime from his capital Slime.
"... Spears, I have a weird question." He said while drying off.
"Hmm?" She was wrapped around his shoulders, helping absorb water.
“Where do we go from here? Me, you, and Bell.” If she wants it.
“I mean, we can probably sort of keep going? We're going to live a long time. Especially given...” She made a little circle.
“Okay. I know you're game for anything, but at some point I have to sit down with you and Bell... and maybe Lady.”
Spears jiggled laughing. “Well, it might be tough. Bell is prickly about the whole thing. But yeah, I kinda got used to us being a family.”
“I also had one of the cultivators bothering me in the acid dungeon.”
“We'll sit down and hash it out.” Spears said, wiggling. “Remember, we have time!”
“Okay. I feel like sometimes I'm being greedy...” Corvayne said before brushing his teeth. There wasn't enough room in the bathroom to do a full set of stretches, but he did a few.
“I was just thinking when we are back home, or at least, when we have a base of operations, I might ask you to consider... renewing our engagement.”
She turned some ultra pink shade and radiated joy, before her face became stormy. “You idiot! Never say something like 'when I get back home, I'm going to propose!”
He laughed at that, and just did the little spiral motion for time loop. After that, she helped him putting on his thin waterproof underwear then the Jam Jammies, which flashed black for a moment before turning to the usual strawberry texture and color. His chain mail was next, followed by the life-saving treasure and his cloak. He then put the swarm gauntlet on, and the fleet beacon on the other hand. He crossed the greatsword with his own spear, then put a revolver on his hip, trusty fire-breathing dagger on the other. He put his running boots on, and felt ready to take on the world.
Bell was laying in bed and gave a little wave. “Can you be back for my match tonight?”
Corvayne nodded. “Assuming there isn't a stupid chase, yes.”
“It's just the qualifying matches still. But I want you to watch me crush them!”
He leaned over and kissed her, not responding to a little tongue she slipped in, nor her nails digging into his arm. Instead, he exited the barracks, flipped his sword up to turn the key, then set it down and used his compass to ride out to the motorpool.
What he ended up at was something like the spaceport parking lot writ large, then covered in dust and left to rot in the weather for about 50 years. Some of the trucks looked beat up but functional, however he could see more than a few that were just wrecks. It was odd that the sect had areas that seemed as lush as anything else, then he'd fly a few miles and be in a desert. He looked around, dipping into the 'extra' direction that he had noticed on the way to the arena. For a moment he startled when he saw something out of place in a row of completely rusted cars that shouldn't exist, but it was just a bulky bug that waved at him. Gylwin, of course.
He changed the broom to glide down the row, which caused Spears to puke out orange juice. He found it adorable, possibly because it was the same as just pouring juice on the ground.
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Gylwin's clone shifted to grow a red eye to look at them. “I defeated most of the invaders, but they were not looking for you. At least, the ones I caught.”
He nodded. “Little Spur was their target. I figure you have a body near Preshe at all times.”
The bug folded it's scythe like arms, eye slipping back into the folds of armor on it's featureless head before it jutted what might be it's chin upwards, as if it needed to project cockiness.
“I've been doing this since before you were old enough to hold a spear. Here's what I think. We got more then one group doing things for more then one reason. There's us, whom may or may not be the only group sent here by the Three Kings.”
Corvayne was about to protest then stop. He could see that if one looked at it a certain way (or most ways) what they were doing would look like infiltration of the sect with help from the Three Kings. On the other hand, they got kidnapped into becoming members.
“There were the Red Line Sect members who were trying to find and kill Little Spur. I don't think they were plants. When they acted, there were two other killings. Drained dry.”
“Is Big Red okay?”
“He's fine, and I didn't see that blond bombshell you call Bombshell leave the stables. There's something going on with tremendously bad luck too, three other deaths, and that's almost certainly foul play, but if she's really 'killing' people it's a method that leaves different results every time, I don't think she's doing it right under my antenna. However... it's possible she has something connected to her able to do it. Just like I have split bodies... we have to catch them in the act. I think you and Preshe are the two most likely to see something up with essence.”
“Once I'm done here, can you lead me to a body?”
Glywin nodded, and Corvayne took them out of the dimentional shortcut back into the junkyard dubbed a motorpool. His destination was a garage with a lot of welding going on. Grungy looking engineers in oil stained clothes watched as he flew in.
“Hey newbie, over here!” Corvayne spotted a big man waving. He sort of looked like grunt if he had been shrunk in the wash to slightly less impressive proportions and a more obvious neck. The welding goggles reminded him of Spaces-Torn-Asunder. This was going to be fun.
“I was told by Rio your going to fuck things up for a few hours and leave. Stick to the hopeless wrecks in that corner and try not to damage any tools too bad.”
That was, in Corvayne's mind, a challenge. “You want trucks, tractors, hoverbikes, spaceships?” Corvayne asked as he strolled up to a tool kit and picked out a wrench and screwdriver.
The guy laughed, and for as little as the man thought of him, Corvayne got that he was used to following orders with a 'who-gives-a-shit' attitude. He smiled. “Sure, all that and a birthday cake. Won't even charge ya for eggs.”
“Hey boss! The sect does charge us for eggs.”
“Nevermind that last offer newbie.”
Corvayne nodded and went over to the wrecks in the corner. Some of them were just badly rusted.
“Spears can you reverse your rusting slimes?”
“Never tried.” She said as she concentrated, shivered, squeezed, and with a pop... produced a nipple.
He snorted, then used a thumb to push it back into her body. “Try again, and keep it work safe.”
She squeezed out a little dark blue blob that darted at the rust and sat on it, bubbling then forming a coating of ice it broke through to keep eating rust. What was left wasn't in great shape, but it was raw materials. He certainly wasn't going to take dungeon materials out to fix someone else's car. Spears directed the slime and collected the large flakes of material left over. She wasn't very strong with Lythandies powers, so Corvayne took them and started using his hands to bind and shape the metal. Soon enough he had flexible plates and a pile of broken glass, four leftover tires, and a bunch of other metal parts that were once something important but now might as well have been scrap. He guessed they were parts of a broken transmission or something from the engine block, but it didn't matter.
He moved through the pile of cars taking raw materials and saving some of the mechanical parts that looked like they could be salvaged with a little bit of spit and shine. He was going to need his own hovercraft at some point, as the sword just didn't have space on it for a personal shield, nor did the wind effect entirely remove the chance a bug would fly into one's teeth. There was enough copper in three wrecks and an old radio he could make a nice agrav unit and put it into a smaller bike. It wouldn't fly as well as his old one, but he was reworking the engine for maximum electricity, amping up the alternator to output enough juice to carry a truck and bed, then set up landing wheels before grabbing a few stacks of metal to make a propulsion unit. He needed some insulated wiring to make sure the coiled wire on startup didn't fry the controls, so he got up and walked over to the boss.
“Do you have something to apply Neoprene PVC or Dull Crima sleeves for wires?”
“I don't know what the fuck Dull Crima is, but we got PVC and Neoprene wires.” He motioned at a spool. “What are you even going to hook it up to?”
Corvayne took about a quarter of the spool. “Standard Gasoline... hmm do you guys use lead? Well, a gasoline engine and an Alternator that I'd say is... three? Alternator Mk III.”
“What the hell does 'mic three' mean?” The boss said, now following along. Weirdly, his hostile tone hid amusement and curiosity.
“It means numbers went up.” Corvayne took the wire and started hooking everything up to the alternator, guessing he had more then enough voltage with a III or II.5 at the end. He started mending, hands melding metal together.
“Ohly shit it's a metal bender! Why didn't you say so kid?”
Suddenly everyone wanted to be his friend.
“Can you melt the weld-lines? I got a request to make it as shiny as possible.”
“Can you shape gold? It needs to look like a cow with a human pair of tits. No joke!”
“I got a nut that's stripped I could use a hand with!”
“Hey everyone, this guy needs help with his nuts! Don't we all!”
Corvayne got distracted and did some work. First the chrome work was easy, barely taking a thought to smooth everything out. Someone else actually needed help with an engine and Corvayne split it open with a careful use of [Cross Skill-Sundering Blade] via his screwdriver, then mended the engine's interior and cleaned out some corn grit before undoing the precise slice through the engine block. The stripped nut he just fixed. The cow with tits he opted to make a woman with horns, using Lythandies' power to let him carve it like wood. He paled as he realized he had just etched the acting sect leader's face into a huge truck's topless figurehead.
Everyone else agreed they liked it a lot, asking him to stay longer than just two short hours, to which Corvayne checked the clock and realized he had only been there fifty minutes.
“Took me hours to do all this last time...” He shrugged and got a hover truck up and running over the next hour, using the last few minutes he was on the hook to make them a few parts that they could mess around with to make their own hover-whatevers, as well as whip up a bike for himself.
That out of the way, he shook the bosses hand and tossed the stolen flying sword in his holdout ring before pointing his compass at the main storehouse of the sect. Before he did any snooping, he wanted to talk to Kirae.