Corvayne stepped out of door 9, huffing for air. Icy water poured off him and he was very tempted to shake like a dog. Another bust. So far they had done half of the doors, most of them leading to various traps and a scattered few fights against automated defenses. The most recent was essentially a maze that filled with water. Corvayne had enough sense to fill his ring with air once he saw what was happening and used it to create bubbles in dead ends. Even then it had been close due to the maze shifting, which caused his compass to wobble before they figured out what it was doing and that every six changes brought it back to the original form.

Rio was close behind him out of the door, soaking wet and wearing a hangdog expression on her face. Every step her cowboy boots squelched with water, and there was a fish that had somehow got tangled in her hair, along with seaweed. He was pretty sure the teleporter out had done that. She took the wiggling fish and tossed it into the pond around the tree.

Wordlessly, they both walked around the atrium to door 1, which was the lone exception to tricks and traps that had been eating up the better part of a day. It was an array of guest rooms, perhaps even the master's own quarters. It had comfortable beds and functional bathrooms, but most importantly it had showers with hot water.

Rio almost followed him into the room he went into, but veered at the last second. Corvayne took a deep breath. Whatever was going on with her, she likely needed to redirect it to the sect leader.

He showered and put his clothes in a basket that worked like a drier, save his berry pants which didn't ever really get dry and would just glop jelly over everything if he tried to apply a hairdrier to it. They were absorbing the water anyway, patches turning red for a moment before becoming black.

Cleaned up and ready for the next challenge, he waited about ten minutes for Rio to step out.

“Door 10.” She snapped, adjusting armor that looked like something a samurai might wear, with a forehead protector.

Corvayne adjusted his hive greatsword and checked that the swarm gauntlet hadn't died from being drowned. A faint hum on the back of his knuckles confirmed the wasps inside were just fine, even if they had just gone swimming for a few hours.

They moved upstairs and opened the wood door, stepping out into what looked like a version of an old desert fort. Corvayne thought it resembled the building he had met Kirae in: adobe walls with wood logs sticking out, but nearing a half wall he could see the shaped clay was actually shaped wood, and the wood posts sticking out was carved stone.

They took a moment to look around before moving. There were lots of buildings something could attack them from, and there were joints and lines in the floor that suggested it could morph. Almost every room in the place was able to shift, be it to spring traps or enemies or just to plain confuse them. He could see what looked like a pair of dense essence strings under the center of the fort, and the door out looked like it would require crossing the middle to get up to the other side. He could make out strings that blocked the door itself but none limiting flight.

“It doesn't think flying will break the trap.” He said, and gestured to the center of the fort. At that, the stone platform opened. Corvayne didn't wait to see what was opening up before he swung his sword, a swarm of ships flying. He readied them to attack and a moment later he got hit with a quantum bullet. He threw down a shadow shield as Rio returned fire.

He floated to the top of the sphere and pulled a potion out, stemming the burning hole in his chest. Whoever it was had been aiming for his heart, but the chain mail shirt had 'just' caused the force of however many thousands of bullets to break a few ribs. His buzzing ships blasted the gunslinger, who fired off a dozen shots that took the interceptors out before they could disable him.

Rio called out “I'm pinned down!” as more shots fired. Corvayne could see one attacker was sweeping back and forth while the other had a shooters stance with two guns, while also using two extra hands to reload. He got a sense they were golems from the way they moved. Gunslinger shifted a gun to track him as he dropped his shield and tethered to a place with cover. Corvayne could tell it was cheating it's aim so he forced gravity onto the chamber of the weapon. It fired, but whizzed by him as he landed in a safe spot, then threw up another shadow shield while also using call shadows.

Two clouds appeared above the robot, who was forced to move. Corvayne fired off all his interceptors the moment he caught sight of the chrome cowboy, who in turn spun and shot at Corvayne's face. This time he compensated with lowered gravity to go with the robot trying to aim up, giving him just enough time to dive for cover and only taking a few quantum scattered shots into his arm.

“Even when they miss those guns hit.” He grumbled just as the entire fortress was blasted by the noise of his attack; a hundred tiny starships unleashing miniature Armageddon. At the same time, He saw Rio had disarmed the cultivator robot at the cost of some nasty slices, and was charging with it in a bearhug while the thing slammed stone fists onto her back. The other robot coolly turned and fired through his partner to try to fill Rio with lead, but she switched armor into something covered in spikes, and combined with ship fire both cowboy and cultivator golems were blasted into bits.

Corvayne took a deep breath and then ran over to make sure she was alive. She had switched to red armor that seemed to be helping her wounds close, and Corvayne used mend from behind to activate Back-Staunch, which helped push out all the bullets (from other dimensions) that had been winding it's way through her. She looked away and blushed after his healing left some of her abdomen exposed, but Corvayne politely ignored it. She has a crush on another guy that looked like him, he reminded himself. Loot called, so he strolled over to the golem which, sadly, was totally scrapped guns and all.

On the other hand, there were a pair of thin dueling swords Rio had knocked off the other golem. He used his foot to kick them into his hand. Rio held a hand out for one but let him keep the other. He hadn't seen what the enchantment was, but he was pretty sure it was powerful if it could harm the incredibly durable assistant guild leader.

“Good thing we are above and beyond most of these combat rooms.” She said as they walked over to the now unlocked door out. Corvayne looked at his hands before following. He was pretty sure.

Door 11 was next. In this room there was a slightly see through figure on a flying sword, resting in what looked like a brightly lit open wooden box facing pure darkness. There was also a flying sword laying on the ground. The perfect black was only broken because out there in the gloom Corvayne saw another vibrant frame of wood, the bright tan square hinting at a path in the shadows.

When Rio arrived the image started to rise, and then jet off on it's sword. Rio grabbed him and jumped on, swearing. “It's a race! Shit!”

In a moment he had his arms wrapped around her as they flew off, wind whipping by as they passed the first ring about fifteen seconds behind the shimmering blue illusion. More boxes appeared, as did what were clearly the sides of the huge open space – jagged stone walls.

Rio was an expert driver and was aiming for angles that gave them the closest possible curve to hit the next box. At least, until she had to swerve as one of the walls had pushed a huge stone spike into her path. The illusion had done a little bob there and Corvayne had wondered about why. He used Gravity to drop the sword a few feet, the stone spike still whipping past their heads.

“The fucking walls are closing! I gotta go faster!” Rio shouted and she leaned forward, forcing Corvayne to basically grind on her as she forced the sword to go faster. He dropped their gravity a little bit and she elbowed him as the sword nearly smashed them into the top part of the wood box.

“Stop fucking around with the weight of the sword!!!”

As she said this she had to pull up to a near stop as there was a portal in a stone wall that required the sword to slow down or hit wooden spikes. They did in fact slam into the spikes and Rio got impaled through her arms and legs. Corvayne kicked them off and used Back-Staunch and Shadow Mend while also willing the sword to go up as there were grinding noises and he strongly suspected losing the race would result in death. The sword's response to his lackluster cowtivation was to go half speed, wobbling as it floated up.

Rio started to recover as he felt something else inside him slowing down. Switching to regular mending was fine, he had enough piety to turn a pound of hamburger into a tiny cow. There was something that his grasping class abilities was using that wasn't mana, stamina, or health. Very interesting but Rio jabbed him with an elbow as she started trying to get the sword back to her control. He let go, then forced his [[Unity]] link open and mentally said 'I invite Rio to my party.'

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'Party invite target'

'Rio is in my party'

“What are you doing?” She asked, then there was a click as the link opened fully both ways. He essentially shoved gravity control over to her, and in a moment the sword shot up to the ceiling then they slowed down just enough to slip out rather than brain themselves on the ceiling.

“Y-y-your dual cowtivating! You can't just- I wasn't ready for us- FUCK I'm going to kill you after this!”

Corvayne urged her to stop being horny for him and just drive, helping her natural lower the weight of the sword until they were nearly weightless. In a moment they were flying for the next wood frame, the shaft they had just left compressing with a dull thud of finality. Ahead, spikes were closing in.

The sword moved fast enough there was a shattering blast as they broke the sound barrier, but Corvayne could see a wood shaft that would force them to stop and drop or hit spikes. This time, he used a gravity tether with Rio's reflexes to swing the blade down then another turn to send them flying upside down on the blade, legs glued via gravity as they entered what looked like a stone snake with wood hoops. Corvayne let them glide in a spiral as spikes were chomping behind them and jutting from the walls, forcing him to whip gravity tethers every half second until they could get back to the center of the ring right side up. Almost five seconds after that the glowing wood rings started to form fake splits. Corvayne could just see were dead ends sent the correct direction to Rio just fast enough to force a gravity tether to, yanking them at blurring speed into the right tunnel.

The momentum as they entered a tightly packed tunnel of wood rings was enough he had to keep repulsing the walls and forcing them to spiral up and around while gluing them to the sword, meanwhile he could feel Rio's heart beating and her laser focus, shifting her gear to something that was basically pumping stamina, mana, and chi into her, all of which was being shunted to either Corvayne or the sword, all while keeping rings on that improved her reflexes.

They caught a flash of blue ahead as they entered the final stretch, a vast open space which looked like it was between rooms, with huge stone pillars of mixed stone and wood looming from the floors and ceilings, forming rows of paths between them. Huge wood hands loomed between titanic wood and stone gears, everything either a bright brown that looked gold with gleaming light from unseen sources, or the deep green of grime or moss stained stone. Those palms started to move, thousands of them emerging from the sides of the walls, from the floor, and ceiling, all of them converging to try to crush them.

Rio pulled Corvaynes arms around her tighter, and he was REALLY sure that between terror and excitement she was turned on as they leaned forward like a pair of wolves and pushed both their energies into the sword, sending it flying after the spec of blue between thousands of obstacles, Corvaye using compass to push Rio the right direction, at the same time her reflexes and superior stamina and mana fueling swaps of Gravity while also adding gear that stopped them from blacking out, their super human bodies needing reinforcement as they made insanely sharp turns before blasting forward between the last two hands into a home stretch straightway. The blue ghostly figure never changed course as they blew past it into a closing stone door flew into black and white leaves that covered a moss that was more air than plant, like a huge balloon that slowly reduced them to non lethal speeds before it gently pushed them back to a wood box with a doorway in it.

The prize was just a bunch of gold, which was pretty much worthless to them. Rio did take a simple sash though, and they were still linked and he could feel her greed. She turned to him and pressed her lips to his and he had to break the link as he felt her need, loneliness, everything try to flood him.

“No! Bring it back!” She begged him, pushing him to the ground of the treasure chamber.

“Control!” He barked back, putting a palm in front of her face which just got her to shove his hand out of the way. For a moment her eyes were wild, sitting on him, her imposing Sect leader face and black and red eyes contrasting with her snow white nightee in turn contrasting with her trembling hands that were holding him down with the last whispers of his own gravity power.

“Control yourself. I'm not him.” He said, his own blood up. Linking to someone so fast had been... too much. She was like a starved wolf, and he had forced her to reach the kind of understanding that took years and years to really develop in a moment, and at the same time she had leaked back everything to him.

She fell on him, but just rested her head against him, taking shuddering breaths.

He saw his own gear was missing besides his pants, perhaps her forcing her own ability to store his gear. He left it in his ring and pulled out his spear.

“Deep breath.”

She took the flying sword and started to copy him. Did she steal it? Or did he give it to her? Or was his dad somewhere in this mountain, and every pupil studied something that was the legacy of the watchers?

He quashed the last bit of her wants, ignoring that the fabric didn't hide enough. Instead he sent calm her way. Control. Patience.

“We are warriors. You are moments from seeing the one you love. You shouldn't throw it away.”

She did the motions, eyes closed. “You've been looking at my ass the entire time you were in the sect.”

Corvayne spun his spear, turning his back to her as he worked through motions both useful and pure art, stretching and tensing and flowing. “Trusting me because I look like someone else could have been a mistake too.”

“You have abilities that let you play with my emotions, so it's your fault I'm this way.”

“You see how I think. I had to decide between being powerless and letting my friend be taken away, and giving myself a tool to fight upwards.”

He turned and saw her turn back to face him, blade doing the same motion as it caught the gleam of gold all around them. “You want more. Inside you, you want more love. I want it too.”

He sighed. “What once drove you to perfect your path of Cowtivation would drive you off the path if you let it.”

She took a step closer, dance slowing. “What if I changed my mind? Said I wanted you?”

Corvayne tried not to look at obvious signs of her excitement, instead focusing on her eyes. “You doubt that. I know you, you know me.”

She stopped, putting the flying blade down point-first into the treasure pile at her feet. “We can be broken together.”

Corvayne held out a hand. “I have a better idea. Come with us. We can help you find yourself, then when you come back to Dusky, you will be your own person, rather then trying to catch up to him. The race... was a pretty good metaphor for what you're doing. Chasing who you imagine he is, with his head start making it nearly impossible. All the traps... trying to be the fastest gunslinger, the most skilled bladesmith. Trying to reach the next level before you run out of time, navigating an invisible maze of shifting alliances like webs...”

Rio waved a hand, annoyance finally getting a foothold from that terrible desire to push away emptiness. “What's the golems that we demolished? Or the spinning axe room? I get the tightrope.”

“The golems represent you need to get a vibrator.” Corvayne said, watching as a previously hidden door in the room started to open. “Was the point of this entire dungeon just to try to get you to deal with your problems?”

She looked away and morphed from nearly naked to fully armed. Corvayne put his own armor on. She rubbed her nose and then removed her fake eye and hair color, then shifted her armor to look like a denim robe with jeans. The Daogirl radiated embarassment. “No, I think it's something else.”

“How does it quantify personal growth? Or he's awake and listening.” Corvayne said, stepping to the side door and entering the weird clockwork space between rooms. Compass came to life, though it wasn't even needed. Golden arrows had manifested, pointing them the right way down the wooden scaffolding around the titanic rooms that formed the hermitage, some of them still moving and likely fighting off Red-Line sect invaders.

Corvayne could see parts of the course they had raced resetting, hands drifting back into different spots. “I wonder if it turns into a giant ten-thousand handed robot or something.”

Rio was behind him. “I doubt that. I want to ask you... why do you push back so hard on meeting your desires? You want more women, more love.”

Corvayne sighed. “You saw a lot of my mind, right?”

“It's jumbled.”

“It's fractured. I am missing memories. I'm under curses that gave me false memories, and may influence how I think. And so... what's the point of a dozen girls if I don't know what I want from them? I want love. I want to be loved, but also, I want to spar with Lady Blood Claw. I want to hunt again with Spears. I want Bell to ask me to try out new rocket launchers. I want...”

He stopped. He wanted to carve wood with Hari. He wanted to go back to watching Wick go completely off the rails. There was something wrong with them, but something wrong with him. He needed to figure out what had happened to the girl Cascadia.

Rio gently took his hand. “I'd want to go riding a sword again, just like that.” She smiled at him.

Corvayne didn't shake it off. She wasn't digging for more, she had calmed down.

That made one of them. They were getting closer, Corvayne's compass directed him to keep looking up. The wood and stone cubes they threaded between had strands of gold running through them, all of them shining with essence. They had been climbing a spiral and as they kept going up, more and more of the twisted sub-layers of the mountain fell away to set them on a stairway up to an orb made of gold, suspended by wood above and stone below, radiating essence and other energies so strongly that some of them dipped into vision.

It took nearly half an hour from the base of the steps to climb up, the weight of the sphere's spiritual power slowing them as unseen forces blew against them.

It was nearly silent and still, but it felt like a whipping storm around them, and now and then sparks of gold would form on the stone as energies intersected. Rio called out “The arrays that are forcing him to the next breakthrough... they are warping the QI here.”

“Will you be okay?” He half shouted, the hurricane of energy distorting his senses even if the dull gold glow only pushed the air in gentle breezes.

Finally, he bounded up the last few stone steps. A circular hatch, something like he'd expect out of a space ship, formed the way into the central chamber where Dusky was. His compass turned off, having guided him to the sect leader. Rio had to pause on the second to last step and switch to finer robes, and fuss with her hair.

“Once the sect is saved, you have to talk to him.”

She nodded. He used Juxtapose to switch their positions, as he wouldn't dream of denying her seeing her master first after hundreds of years, nor did he really want to have some grandmaster god-cowboy punch his face because they lead with the stranger.

As she fussed with the runes and with a click started unsealing the door, he took a deep breath. There'd be a fight, but if they could win he might be back to low floors inside of a week. Actually, he might stop for a few days at the hotel they had basically made back in Greencarpet...

The energy inside the chamber.... was oddly still. It was dark inside.

Rio stepped in, and every surface started to glow dimly. “Master?”

A moment later, she slumped to her knees, and Corvayne moved in behind her. He spotted first the hole up on the ceiling, like something had seemingly burnt into the wall. From the ugly melted wound in the sphere, strings of essence were hanging like a broken spiderweb.

Then he looked down and saw, on a platinum horse blanket, the withered corpse of the sect leader right as Rio started to wail.