Wick looked at Corvayne, the purse and phone that Seru left behind in his hands, and then the trail she ran down.
“We can't chalk this one up to her own dumb fault?” Wick muttered.
“I don't really like any of these people, but dealing with them just emphasizes that the love I feel for you, Grunt, Hari, Icariii, and even Mosh is well earned.”
“Ok. I'm going to call Grunt outside, and have Mister I drive home, pick him up, and drive us back. It's going to take hopefully less than four hours, plus whatever time it takes us to run this dungeon again. Can you find her and keep her alive near the entrance to the sixth floor for a day?”
“Yeah. I love you Wick. Take her phone.” He tossed it to Wick.
“Keep it! If we take it outside, there's a chance it just syncs to her cloud and she gets all the pictures. Just toss it into lava or a lake or something.”
He turned to go up the trail but Wick grabbed him and hugged him, then kissed him before pushing him at the trail.
The sixth floor opened up into what looked like Cascadia's suburbs. It was a hilly neighborhood under a rainy amber sky, with grayish painted houses on dark orange-red paved streets, and light gray sidewalks. It seemed that there were folds where the angle of the island changed. The best way he could process it was compare it to a piece of paper that the suburb was built on, then someone took started the process of making a paper frog out of it, then unfolded it halfway. As with the other entrances to floors this one was given a nice view from atop a hill. He could see that the weird geometry of the suburb seemed to bend and twist everything into a sort of half-pipe shape. There was no sign of Seru yet, but a dirt trail lead down to the streets.
He first checked the hilltop, to make sure the woman wasn't in the bushes. He noted the floor entrance was a doorway like the one on the first floor, and it also was shut and refused to budge when pushed. It showed the same pictograph the other exit doors had of glowing orange figure walking up five stairs to a door. Annoying that he couldn't just get her and pull her back to the exit. No sign of Seru up top. He glanced down then spotted her running while looking behind her near the foot of the hill. He really wanted to sit down before he got into some sort of chase but he couldn't let her charge into a pack of monsters alone. So he started to sprint after her, his body heavy as he ran.
“Wait!” he called out. She kept running down the street, stumbling. He would have out ran her without the boots, with them pushing him forward it was only a few more moments before she turned and put her fists up, eyes red with tears.
“Don't come any closer! Please! Leave me alone! I won't talk! I swear!”
Corvanye looked around. He didn't see them yet, but he heard a buzzing noise. He drew his spear. She screamed, but Corvayne yelled. “Monsters!” loud enough that she stopped screaming. He then gestured to one of the nearby homes. Down here, he could see they were covered in graffitti. “Go hide on a porch! Now!”
She looked confused, but Corvayne was watching as a pack of five small plastic droplets with dual propellers flew over the houses and started charging at him. He could see tiny guns on the drones, and he took his cloak and tossed it over Seru. The fabric changed colors and the drones as one locked into attack formations aimed at him.
“Stay hidden, or you'll get shot.” Corvayne spoke and, as if to prove him right, felt a sharp slap on his arm. It stung like crazy, but it was a small bullet and looked like it was silver. Corvayne started to run in a zig-zag, the sound of pellets hitting the ground beside him louder than the soft plops of the guns firing them. Corvayne got hit in the leg too, but the flying drones seemed to have run out of bullets after about twenty shots and neither wound was deep. He readied his spear and used [Cross skill: Whirling Axes] to fire off a ghostly spinning spear. It blew one of them out of the sky, scattering it into a cloud of plastic and metal. Corvayne then had the four others charging him, attempting to slash him with their propellers. Despite still hurting from the dragon fight, he stepped into the oncoming formation.
[Flows-Like-Water] let him swim through the swarm that was trying to fly through him. He jabbed out twice, one hitting a propeller mount and flinging the robot onto the pavement, another breaking the casing with a shower of sparks, then he turned and rammed the back of his spear into the third and knocked it out of the sky. The fourth dive bombed him but he used [Juxtapose] and harmlessly shifted it so it smashed into the ground. Two quick jabs later and all five robots were dead. The smell of burned out circuit boards wafted from the more intact ones.
Corvayne himself was huffing now and leaned on his spear a moment while he turned to look for Seru. He was concerned she had taken his cloak and ran again but no, she was hiding under it on the street. He heard soft sobbing.
Corvayne walked up the cloak covered girl, crouched by her, and offered his hand. “Hey, Seru, can you come out?”
“You're going to kill me.” She whimpered.
“No. I wouldn't need to talk to you if I was planning to do that.” Corvayne felt blood dribbling out of the small bullet holes in him, and the acid burns had moved from raw pain to post-healing hurting and itching. He really wanted to break into a house and see if they had a working bath. Or fall on a lawn. Not yet. There was work to be done, and he been through worse.
“Wick's going to kill me.” Seru said with a sniffle, pulling the cloak back enough to peek out at him.
“No, we don't operate like that. Your phone is in trouble, but we're going to do everything we can to get you home alive.” He really wished she would just take his hand so they could get to cover. Or so he could put it down.
“I was going to fuck you guys over.”
“Yep.” Corvayne breathed in, then breathed out. “I'm pretty hard to rile up, and I'm guessing you have a reason you want to break this big story so bad. Cmon, let's get out of the open.”
She finally accepted his hand and he pulled her to her feet, to the protest of his own legs. Her makeup was running, which made him wonder if she put makeup on every day the last week they had been killing goblins. He took his cloak back, and slung it over his shoulder. She meekly followed as he walked across the trimmed grass lawn into the shadow of a porch with a swing-couch on it. The pillows were teal red and blue plant patterns. Did the dungeon stitch them to match the plants?
He knocked on the door then used a hand to lean against the frame. No response after a minute. Seru crouched down and lifted the 'Welcome!' mat and produced a key.
Corvayne stopped her from leading the way inside after she unlocked the door with a squeeze on her shoulder. “I'll go first. If it's clear, we'll hole up here and wait for our friends to arrive. I have Wick pulling backup.”
The interior of the house was dark. The walls were wood or wall paper, with dark thick carpet glazed with a layer of dust. There were furnishings covered in dusty plastic tarp. Corvayne lead spear point first. He called out “Hello? Anyone home?” as he walked through the living room to a kitchen. The age of the fixtures and everything reminded him a lot of the community center.
“This looks like a retro home, something built before space travel.” She paused. “Like, Hundreds of years old.” Seru added.
“Makes as much sense as finding a medieval village out in the monster infested woods.”
Stepping through the kitchen he stopped to try a faucet. Water spilled out, first gray with dust then eventually a clear stream. He turned it off. Good, with his purifier they could stay for weeks even with minimal food.
Corvayne checked the entire home, starting with the ground floor then moving upstairs to abandoned bedrooms with plastic covered beds, then down creaking steps into a basement. Corvayne looted a toolbox and also checked if there was any power on the fuses. He was a little shocked when flipping a switch brought the furnace online. Then again, Kings Crossing back on the third floor didn't really make sense as a village... why were there roads if there were no travelers? Who was pumping power into homes that looked to be totally empty? More importantly, what else besides drones would this floor throw at them? The last question was one that he'd be sure to get an answer for.
“Seru, I'm going to go outside and hunt. I mean, thin out anything hostile, and see if I can find food here. I'm going to make a big arrow or do something else that points to this house so Wick and company comes for us, but it might be a whole day until they get here. So I want you to secure this place as best you can. Do your best with a flashlight, okay?”
He turned away but felt her hand grasp his arm, tugging near enough a bullet hole to make him wince a little. “No! You can't leave me alone!”
He gently removed her hand and put his on her shoulders to look her in the eyes. She looked like a lost puppy, so he tried to sound supportive, sort of like how Diamonds-in-Passing spoke to other trainees. “You got those fists right? You're more than a match. Also, I'm not going too far from here, and I'll help you barricade the doors. I'm going to need you to take the tools and find some wood and nails we can use to secure the doors. We'll stick to going in and out the front door. So for now, lock the doors, pick a room to sleep in. I'm not going far enough that I won't hear something going on, so if something scary happens, just make a lot of noise and I'll be right back.”
By the end of him talking she was nodding. Corvayne went downstairs and checked the garage attached to the home out. One car, covered in dust. No obvious monsters as he circled it. He shut the door, then called upstairs. “The garage is clear too. It looks like there's some old boards in there. I'm going out the front, I'll be back inside an hour.”
Cloak on and over his head, he locked the door behind him, then spent a moment pulling the silver bullets out of himself. He kept one in his pocket, silver was silver after all. He tried not to eye the swing-couch next to him on the porch. He had to keep moving for a while yet, and resting outside with the drones was off the table. He stepped off the porch and started his search.
Stolen novel; please report.
The neighborhood was quiet. No birds, just wind and the pitter-patter of rain. Good weather to sleep to. Just not yet. He started with the homes on the block. Half of them had keys somewhere by the front door, or under conspicuous fake rocks, even a pile of plastic dog poop. The homes were very similar, and empty of threats. Checking in their fridges he found they were empty, though he did fine some dried beans and an unopened package of rice in a cupboard. He was really hoping for chests or an exit back down to five that would circumvent the locked door, if there were such stairways, or an exit to floor 7. If push came to shove, he'd prefer to wait on a stairway where he was sure there would be no surprises.
Leaving the seventh house he heard buzzing again and crouched on a porch, his cloak melding his shape to blend in with the manic scrawls of graffiti. He knew it did something that made machines not see him as well or at all, so he felt pretty safe watching a flight of five drones meet up with another flight, then swivel around the pile of destroyed parts he had left in the street, then fan out in ten different directions. Corvanye felt himself frown.
That was behavior that suggested more intelligence than the opponents he'd faced on lower floors. He wished he had a bow so he could quietly kill scouts. Also, with a bow he could probably fire it while sitting down or at least while taking a knee.
He was about to enter his tenth house when he heard popping noises that suggested a gun fight down a few blocks. He jogged that way, clipping through yards and bounding over short fences as his cloak shimmered colors. He came up to a house and slowed, then peeked his head around the side.
Six drones, with two down, were blasting what looked like a two headed corpse. A different kind of undead. It seemed to be frustrated, grabbing parts of downed drones and flinging it, attempting to stop a barrage of silver bullets. Each hit actually lit the corpse on fire a little until finally it's legs gave out and it fell apart. The drones swarmed around the remains of the corpse, spraying it with something that caused it to ignite with green fire, then they flew off. Well, that was interesting.
He crept back the way he came, and visited a final house. Breaking in and heading to the kitchen, he opened a few drawers and smiled. He pulled out a few fancy spoons and a serving tray that were actual silver. This time, he'd not walk into Cascadia with an empty wallet! Not that he had a wallet, yet. He had a little time left before an hour was up, so he headed up to the bedrooms in the last house and scoured them for jewelery. It wasn't magical gear, but it was a few more credits in a pinch.
He returned and Seru had cleaned out a bedroom and started boarding windows up. He advised her to cover the window with a black garbage bag first so there were no signs someone had boarded the windows up. Corvayne helped her with nailing doors shut with wood stops, then went into the garage and found some spray paint cans that still worked. One set was a nice shade of yellow too. Actually, given all the grafitti on the houses, it sort of made sense that there was a lot of spray paint. He went outside, then thought about it: If he painted an arrow, would the drones know or report back to someone that there was obviously a house that something pointed to? Ah. He painted a yellow diamond on the door, then next to it. A lot of yellow diamonds. He went back inside and followed hammering to a side door then let Seru know he'd be gone for about five minutes after scrounging and finding a working pen, paper, and a nail. It was raining, so he had to walk back inside and find a paper bag.
The drones could see things, but they didn't have fingers. Any undead, especially one mindlessly trying to claw at something flying away from it, wouldn't notice the paper, nor the diamonds mixed in with graffiti. He wrote a note, explaining where they were going to hole up, folded it, put WICK in big letters on it, put it in a clear bag, then dashed to the entrance and found a nice obvious tree to nail it to, then used paint to draw an arrow pointing to it on the trunk of the tree.
Back inside the house, he moved a plaid sofa over and put a floral print chair on it to block the front door, then got working on his real ultimate goal: getting the water heater working. Once more, he owed Spaces-Torn-Asunder a huge debt for pushing Corvayne to learn machines. He only had to fiddle with a few knobs to turn it on and get water flowing through it.
He kept his footfalls loud to make sure to not startle Seru, who was checking through clothes in an upstairs bedroom. She must have decided enough was enough with her now filthy workout clothes, torn jacket, and medieval worker garb backup.
She startled a little when he cleared his throat. Corvayne pretended not to notice. “Good news. I got the hot water working. I'm going to make some rice and beans if you want to get cleaned up first.”
She moved next to the bed. “I'm going to ask you something, and I know it's totally stupid to bring it up... Are you really not going to get mad at me, like, at all?” Seru folded her arms. “I'd rather you tell me exactly how you feel than blow up.”
Corvayne thought for a half second and shrugged. “I am mad at you. You ignore people who tell you to stop doing things they don't agree to. Flirting with me was one example. It's odd you think I'm attractive and that might have been part of why Jake was so eager to try to second guess me all the time. Otherwise? I should have spoken to you about the phone instead of provoking you.”
What else? Corvayne held up a finger. “I also really love Wick. She has faults, but bad mouthing her makes me angry.”
“So you like glasses?” Seru sat down on the bed, crossing her fur lined boots. Corvayne stopped himself from looking at the tights she was wearing. Could he just get a break? From himself too.
“Oh no. Those glasses in particular are ugly as hell. I mean, it's more that Wick makes things happen, she's entertaining, she's smart. I mean, I'm also a little angry that you were on board with doing something that would lead to our eventual deaths.” Corvayne realized he was sort of looming over her and stepped back and sat in a chair covered in plastic, making crunchy noises as he settled in and felt his body lose tension that he hadn't noticed he had.
“Who's going to kill YOU? You got shot twice and didn't even bother with the wounds.”
“I almost died to the surprise extra dragon. Besides that... I'm not going to disclose everything about Wick and myself. Just imagine someone sort of like me but faster and stronger to the point where getting hit is inevitable, and when that happens I'm dead. Maybe I get to watch the woman I love die if I'm just laying there mangled. If you want to make me happy? Just leave me and Wick out of the story, out of the pictures. Honestly, I think you talking about this at all is going to get you killed, because there's another dungeon under Tel-Star mine, for example, and there's a group who are in the process of swooping in to clean it out. They will take over operations, loot it for a few weeks, then they nuke it.”
“What? Wait, does that mean you're with them?” Seru asked. A surprisingly sharp question.
He shook his head. “No. I assume they are mercenaries but they might be some sort of off the books group.”
“Black ops?”
“Oh no they wore... wear mostly navy blue.”
Seru did laugh at that. “Okay smart ass. Are you going to stop them?”
“I don't know. It's opening me to risks I am not willing to take.” It was likely that the raid happened because of what happened at the mines or because something they sold triggered a response. Probably Nyxion's fault if it was the later.
Seru held out a hand palm up “That's like a thousand people! Versus, you deciding to rescue me and those three guys, despite knowing they'll blab about it. Knowing double that I will blab about it.”
Had he got everyone killed because he decided to be a hero in the mines? “It's one thing if it's a bunch of strangers and another if it's someone right in front of you... on some level I'm stupid like that.”
Seru laughed. “You're not stupid! Maybe stubborn. It was really funny that you kept pissing Jake off! That and he was so sure I was going to go along with his stupid plan to break off. Okay, I gotta say, I really owe you my life, and I'm sorry I was being greedy... but, I didn't do well in school and it's hard around here to do what I'm good at. I wanna be a real journalist but nothing ever happens on Cascadia!”
Corvayne had to laugh at that. “Oh yeah. Nothing like good old boring Cascadia.” Corvayne stood up. “I'm going to start boiling some beans and some rice, then after we take turns with the hot water I'll at least tell you a little about myself. I will say, I don't think anyone knows who I am, it's Wick that I'm worried about. I have no enemies, perhaps aside from Jake maybe? And my best buddy's girlfriend, who has made an outstanding offer to castrate me with a carrot peeler if anything bad happens to Wick.”
Seru gave him a blank look.
Corvanye nodded. “I know. A real great story. Right. I'm going to go cook now.”
Corvayne didn't take a lot of long hot baths when he was in a desert where most stone surfaces could cook an egg. He could have taken another one at the inn, but every coin he shelled out at the inn was one less he could pawn to get cash. But the hot soapy water he lowered himself into made him sigh involuntarily. Looking up at the dim light panel above him and the ceiling, he felt himself loosening up. He had never understood how someone could fall asleep in a bath like they did in books before finding himself in this situation. His thoughts turned to his current large list of problems.
One of his biggest problems was he had placed himself in Wick's corner but didn't know nearly enough about who her enemies were, aside from being fairly certain The Collective had an hidden class of mages trying to find and control the supernatural. He needed more information on the ruling class. He needed to know who was going to blow up the mine. Who's the monk that killed them? Corvayne breathed in and out, causing the water to slosh a little.
He needed to know who Wick was. Or more importantly, why she thought people were after her. He wouldn't push her, but he needed to get better at getting information. Maybe next time grab the magnifying glass. Finish getting Hari up to speed at speaking and reading Cascadian, assuming she got back. He hated that he missed the elf, but a week of Seru had really put into perspective someone who sometimes did some gentle flirting rather than, say, standing in front of five other people while telling him that she liked being bent over things. Granted, once the door closed Hari was... interesting. If she came back he'd treat her better. He hoped she was alive. He had to rub his eyes after thinking about her looking at him as she died.
Putting aside thinking about Hari, he needed more information. They needed money to bribe people to get it. He'd have to see if he could buy information from Dawn. As a legitimate businesswoman she almost certainly had connections that would at least help him map out who people in Cascadia itself were connected to. He could bring Wick in on looking for information on the staff-wielding monk and the mercenaries at the mines. He'd do his own research on Nyxion, and hopefully figure out who Wick was in the process. New skill to pick up: investigating a pan-galactic conspiracy while doing laps around the factory. Maybe his shadow hands could hold a phone and type? He willed the extra limbs to come out, and saw four limbs snake up from the water. They were thicker than before, and he dismissed them after a moment. He had more now. Interesting.
Corvayne dried off and put his clothes back on. His skin still itched a lot from the acid, but the raw areas had healed enough that it wasn't painful. He dished out beans and rice, purified the water from the tap and poured out two glasses. He took a bite. It was bland but better than eating nothing. The little bit of light coming from around the covered windows was fading fast. The floor had a night, which he had no desire to go wandering about in.
Corvayne remembered he wasn't alone and turned on a light in the kitchen so Seru could see. A few minutes later she came into the kitchen. She had changed into a black dress she had pulled out of the closet. She claimed she picked it because it looked expensive, but he was pretty sure she picked it so her cleavage was hanging out. Besides that, she ate quietly, only sometimes staring at him for whatever reason when she thought he was focused on his own plate.
He finished his meal quickly then stood to go double check the doors and windows. A board and a few nails might not keep a monster out but it would wake them up if something had to break in. Seru finished her meal and started up the stairs as he added a table with a lamp on it to ensure the door couldn't be opened without making a clatter. He then went around and turned off any extra lights Seru had turned on, aside from one she had on in the bedroom she cleaned out. She was sitting on the bed. Hmm. He flicked the last bedroom light off and heard her make a startled sound.
He then turned went to a different bedroom and started tugging the plastic off a bed. Seru called out.
“Wait, what are you doing?”
“What does it look like? I'm going to bed.” Corvayne called out as he sat on the bed. It smelled a little old but not musty. He could see her down the hall trying to feel rather than see in the dark, hands tentatively reaching for the door frame. It was odd that everyone else had such crappy night vision.
“In a different room? Are you crazy? Haven't you ever seen a horror movie?”
“I've seen exactly one. I also figure it'd be better for both of us if-”
“I'm not sleeping alone in a dark house like this!” Seru had started to feel her way to a light switch. Corvayne sighed and stood up. He made loud footfalls then gently flipped the hall light on and pointed to the bed. She had fixed her makeup or took it off. She looked genuinely upset about the dark and he felt bad. A little bit.
“Okay. I am going to trust you, Seru, to let me just sleep. If you do anything weird I'm going to a different bedroom. Sneak into that bedroom and you can fend for yourself in this dark house for the entire night, got it?”
She huffed and then went and pulled the covers off the bed then got under them, then realized her dress was uncomfortable and pulled it off and tossed it on the floor. “Not doing anything weird... Same to you! I know you're thinking about how I owe you.” She sounded like she was trying to lecture him. It made him think of Diamonds-in-Passing. Like Seru, Diamonds was someone whom he'd enjoy as a picture to look at but was insufferable as a person. He thought about that time he caught her sun bathing. Just another sign he was tired. Why else was he thinking about how everything on her sparkled?
“No, you don't owe me anything.” Corvayne turned the light off and closed and locked the door.
“And you don't like assertive women...” he heard Seru add.
“I'd say you're zero for two on that one.” He sighed as pulled the covers off his side of the bed and slipped in.
“You say that, but now I'm no longer interested, you're thinking about pushing me down right?”
“If I did that it'd be to put a sock in your mouth.” Corvayne muttered as he rolled to face away from her. Did she put perfume on? Or she sprayed it on the bed. He had to stifle a sneeze. Seru kept going, keeping that angry and indignant tone.
“Just because you're stronger than me, I know you see how small I am compared to you... and you had better not think you can get away with just pulling me onto you, or tying me up, or grabbing me by the hair-”
“I get it. It's not to late for me to sleep in the other bedroom.”
“Do you get it? I have to trust that you haven't decided you're going to grope me, or rip off my underwear when I'm asleep, or pushing me down and-”
Corvayne squeezed his eyes closed then opened them, staring at the wall by the closet. He cut her off.
“Seru!”
She stopped talking. Instead, he heard her breathing like someone who was jogging. It made him irritated and... something else.
“Seru. If you wanted me to do any of that, or wanted me to even THINK of doing something like that... surely, surely you'd know as much as the sweet, innocent, inexperienced elf I slept with who told me what to do to her, a word to stop me, then asked if I was okay with it. Even then I refused to do some of the things she asked me to do. I'm really, really, really tired. I had half my skin burned off today. You asked me to sleep in here, so I am. If you want something else just ask me like an adult talking to another adult. Otherwise for fuck's sake please, PLEASE shut up and go to sleep.”
She was quiet for a while. Corvayne's eyes drifted shut. Finally.
He heard her ask, very quietly, “Corvayne, can you fuck me?”
“Fine.”