Corvayne left the house first and lead the group through back yards, taking care to be quiet and listen for drones. Both times they crossed streets to other blocks he tried to have them go from between houses, and only after he was sure nothing was in the air either way.
He heard a drone group coming while moving through the third block. Corvayne sundered open a backdoor and they piled into one of the homes. Watching from a window, Corvayne thought the drones didn't seem interested in objects being out of place, as they didn't move closer to inspect a broken door. When it had been quiet for a good minute, the group kept moving along, Corvayne shifting their direction a little, both to throw off any drone trickery and because he decided to guide them to a steep slope. His thought process was the stairs up seemed to favor high places, and if they couldn't find it there, it was possible there was a stairway in a house near the slope that would act as a way up.
The second time he heard a patrol they once more entered an empty home. This time the group went ahead and checked the house for goods. Seru bee-lined for jewelery upstairs. Wick instead scoured the book shelves, opening books then closing them. Grunt took three paintings. All of them looked like views of homes in a subdivision. Nyxion sneered at everything in the place. Mister I of course went to the garage and started rooting around for tools. Corvayne checked the basement, finding a bunch of junk like old grills, a lawn mower... He stopped, went downstairs, grabbed the grill, then brought it upstairs and out to the garage.
“Mister I, some of these homes have grills in them.”
“Pah, look at how small the one you found is though. Not fit for rabbits even! Grilling should be a grand adventure for many friends!”
“No no no... some of the stuff you find in this place is magic as-is.”
Mister I stopped. “Ah. AH! We should check every house for a magic grill!”
“I don't know if we can tell what's magic without Hari. And we can't carry a dozen grills. Still... let's collect a few tools and see if there's something that aids cooking or butchering.”
Wick had pulled out three books. Corvayne veered over to her as Icariii stepped into the kitchen to check for unusual utensils.
“What books did you get?”
“Oh I just grabbed the three oldest looking ones. The selection on the shelf is random, but old books sell for a lot. One's a collection of stories, another is a single novel. The third is a nice replica of a mysterious book called the Voynich Manuscript.”
“What's weird about it?”
“It's written in a language nobody-”
She stopped talking and her eyes widened, then she thrust the book at Corvayne. “Read this!”
He looked at it. “An account of falling out of the sea into a sloshing world by an Aelfic.” Flipping a few pages the tome had bizarre drawings. “It's hard to read, the concepts are... I mean, I get words but the organization is off. Like: 'It moves the woman through the woman into the essence of the first star we share called hunter in the warm time but the woman walked right out of the direction of the star and became a good place. The hunter rises again and she grows a foam of clay about her. Many baths will wash the homes out of her but the greed of the godly she would rather die as a tree for the fruit of the town to be on.' Does that make any sense?”
“So if something is alien enough, you can read it but not understand it?”
“Yeah. I'm sorry, I don't get what the book is about either. Maybe give it to Hari and see if there's some other property to it?”
“No no no. You just did something really good! Nobody ever claimed to know what the words meant. It was a total enigma that people guessed was a hoax. If you can read it, that probably means it was in some way a legit otherworldly account.”
“Huh. Well, I guess translating books is always on the table if my other job falls through.”
Wick nudged him. “What do you consider your other job, exactly?”
“Trying to keep you alive. So far I'm the worst still-employed bodyguard there has ever been.” Corvayne finished flipping through the book and handed it back to Wick.
“Oh because normally you're fired if the person you're covering died?”
“Let's not find out exactly how many lives you have.” The rest of the group had finished looting the house and were coming back to the living room.
Seru looked around. “Isn't the layout of these houses really boring? It's almost always the same.”
Nyxion shrugged. “Isn't that true of most of these carbon copy dumps?”
Mister I chuckled, unscrewing a jar of pickles he had found. When did he switch to the kitchen? “My friend, to some people this home would be a palace of impossible prosperity.” He crunched on a pickle. “Also, if you could pull a house from here out of the ruins, you could sell it to a museum and buy a modern home six times it's size. I lament the dungeon has not seen fit to give us something like a ring you can store things in.”
Seru nodded along. “I'd KILL for a purse of holding!”
Grunt nudged Corvayne while barely containing his mirth, then made a gesture like pinching something and turning it, then took the pinched hand and lifted his other elbow, dropped the pinched object under the arm. Then he mimed a hand around his arm and reaching and grasping: Yeah, you'd lose your keys forever in that. Corvayne didn't know why Grunt found that comment so funny but he smiled anyway.
Corvayne went over to a window and gently pulled the curtain aside. No drones, no zombies. He lead the group out of the home and down a few streets before they had to once more duck into a home. This one DID have one zombie, which Corvayne stabbed then kicked out of the way. The group for no reason Corvayne could possibly imagine did not spend as many minutes looting alone in this home. He did see that Lady Blood Claw had been looting clothes. Her skin while stepping down the stairs was a light pink.
“Trying to find enchanted clothes?” He offered.
The woman looked at him and the faintest hint of a smile crossed her mouth. “Before I got picked up by the Magus, there was a style of absurd clothing where I lived that these houses have. Most of these will need a little fitting, but I can do alterations.”
Corvayne nodded. “A woman of many talents.”
Her light pink skin flickered to dark purple. “Flattery will get you nowhere Corvayne.”
Wick found another book she wanted, and Grunt took more paintings. Corvayne wondered what his game was, but Wick also handed him one she had pulled off the wall in a different room. They looked to be pictures of a house from different views, some close and some far, then one of a large chunk of neighborhood. He could ask them flat out and just get the answer, but he wanted to think it over and try to get it without them just telling him.
They were not magic. Hari put the paintings as common class items. So they had value, but not like a magic item, and they didn't seem exceptional or photo realistic like the masterworks in some of the art books he had flipped through at the Watcher's library. Weight wise, they didn't rate compared to handfuls of silver coins.
Come to think of it, the two from the castles were different places that looked like Cascadia's pine covered coasts. Why wouldn't they just be random pictures? Or images of the castle, since the ones here were of the neighborhood. Or were they? The houses on the paintings were not covered in graffiti.
Maybe... the images were of a real place, and there was something at the place in the 'real' world outside the tower. Oh then... it was a scavenger hunt! Like when he found those flachette rounds in the desert, but easier!
“Are you guys trying to find where those paintings are outside of here?” He blurted out. Instantly he regretted it, as he turned and saw Seru had raised an eyebrow. Wick rolled her eyes. “Corvayne sometimes...”
“Wick, instead of taking the whole painting, just take a picture of it.” He countered.
“FUCK. You FUCKER! Fine. I append my statement. We are all idiots.” Wick gestured to Grunt and he took the five pictures he had packed out. Wick took pictures of each of them, checking to make sure they showed up on her phone correctly.
Seru laughed. “I'll make sure to spray paint an X on the spot after I find it so you guys will know to stop looking.”
Nyxion had come in, looked at the pictures, then at her. “Oh did you live near one of those hovels?”
“No dickwad, but my dad worked with city planning so I know which neighborhood that is.”
Grunt made a gesture of holding cards then mimed taking that hand and throwing it in the garbage: She's bluffing.
Seru looked at Grunt. “Does any of that mean anything or is he some sort of weird mime?”
Grunt looked annoyed, but Nyxion started laughing. “If seru had giant blonde drill curls she'd could effortlessly blend into the all bark no bite noble girls they parade out at balls. So much makeup, nothing of substance under it.”
Corvayne wanted to comment they might have picked those women well for Nyx but he wasn't going to jump in and help Seru. Seru, on the other hand, pointed to Corvayne. “You going to sit there and let them trash talk me?”
“Uh. Yes?”
“Hmmf. You and Wick should be doing everything in your power to butter me up so I HELP you when I push this story out.”
Nyxion leaned against a wall. “So, my question to Wick, well, more to Corvayne at this point: Why on Tripic did you run after her to save this woman? The correct course of action would be to shove her off a cliff and let the fall do the rest.”
Corvayne glared at him. “I can't just let a bunch of people die because it's inconvenient to me. Nor would I shove anyone off a cliff unless I was dead certain they were trying to do the same to me. Even if she's a risk, it's one I'm taking on.”
The noble shook his head. “You have to weigh the value of a stranger to say, keeping Wick safe. Not to mention your own well-being. Even if she doesn't blurt your name and address out, you can be found. After all, how many people carrying spears are there on Cascadia? I'm sure you want to be better then the people we are trying to beat, but doing it spotlessly? There's not enough room on Nickle III to bury all the idealists who've tried to change the world that way. Just leave the dirty work to me if you're not inclined.” Nyxion tapped his mace on the floor.
Seru looked worried, which Corvayne begrudgingly gave her some credit for. He spoke up before she said anything that would dig herself deeper. “Seru understands that if she is careless, the bad guys will trace it back to her first.” He looked to Wick, who was looking between him and Nyxion. Who did she agree with? Well, she had been on his side at the moment of keeping the girl alive. Corvayne decided to push forward. “We are going to kill people. It's inevitable. But there's enough people who've earned it, like the asshole with the staff who took out my friends. I know full well what happens when someone gets careless.” He looked directly at Nyx while saying the last part.
Nyxion sneered at him. “I took a calculated risk. Careless? Hmmf. I only trust you to the extent I do because of... Wick and that you generally don't seem prone to pointless stupidity.” Corvayne could see his hand resting on the pommel of his mace. Oh yes Nyx. Try it without shields or force blasters.
Corvayne smiled at the man. “Then forgive me: This will be my own calculated risk. The odds Seru exposes us against the value of not being a cold blooded killer. Keep in mind... we already have three potential leaks out in the world right now.”
LBC put one of her hands on Nyx's shoulders as the man tensed. Her voice as gentle as he'd ever heard her talk and Corvayne just barely heard her. “Easy. Nobody will listen to that girl. They need us, and we need them.”
Nyxion took a deep breath and waved Lady Blood Claw's hand away. “Fine. You're correct. Corvayne, let's find out if your gamble pays off at all then, or if we end up mangled on a runway somewhere.”
Wick nodded at Corvayne as Nyxion strode into the kitchen to have a talk with LBC. She watched them go and then looked back at Corvayne, her expression a little embarrassed. “I know he's not easy to work with, but he's got connections we'll need when we eventually leave this planet. Also... Seru you can let go of Corvayne's arm.”
He hadn't even noticed she had it in a death grip. He gently pried her off. She looked at him a little teary eyed. “He... he was going to kill me.”
“Yep. But it still stands, I'm going to get you home alive.”
Wick stepped forward. “Seru, listen to me. For the rest of the trip, I need you FULLY on board with either helping us or NOT trying to announce, loudly, that you are going to actively screw us over. Forget Corvayne, or Grunt, or even Nyxion. I want you to think about you before you talk from now on. Give yourself five seconds to really fucking go over what you're going to say, and how you'd respond to that if you've been living most of your adult life with people actively trying to find you and kill you. Get it?” Wick lowered her voice. “I know you're going to fucking blab everything about me, and that after we get out I need to immediately make plans to get off this world. Fine. But I need Nyxion's help. I need Corvayne's help. The shit about jumping on something we uncovered? What the hell were you thinking?”
Seru was silent a few minutes, then started tearing up. “I was trying to get you guys to take me with you.”
“What?”
Seru sniffled. “I don't want to... just blurt it out... I want the real story here. You guys are cool.”
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
Wick took Seru and held her at arms length. “Look... Seru. You're going to mess up your makeup...”
Mister I came back with a blue metal chef's knife. “Everything harmonious? Your esteemed friend Nyxion was red faced in the kitchen.”
Grunt acted panicked then made a little wavy dance motion. This was one Corvayne had previously needed someone else to explain to him: Trouble in paradise?
Mister I nodded. “Nyxion has never had to deal with so many issues before. Even in exile he was wealthy. With both his figurative and literal bubbles having been burst by Cascadia...”
Wick looked over to Corvayne. “Oh, for all that fucks me sideways! Corvayne PLEASE help Seru understand that this isn't the assignment to cut her teeth on.” She then ran to the kitchen.
Mister I looked at Corvayne and pointed to himself, then gently patted Seru on the arm and gestured to a couch. He kicked the mummy-like zombie that had landed in front of the recliner out of the way then sat facing the couch, gesturing Seru to sit. The woman looked confused but sat.
The monk spoke gently. “Miss Seru. I've known you for a week, and before I plead with you to part ways with us amicably... I'd like you to tell me what you think... Corvayne, If you wish to go hunting for treasure rather then listening in, I think our young lady might be more at ease to share what she's really thinking. I am a neutral party, and want to help both sides find a more harmonious solution to your current issues. Ah, you need not worry Corvayne... I'm already aware you slept with her.”
Seru responded. “What? No way. He was a huge jerk and left me all alone...”
Corvayne was honestly shocked. He didn't think Seru could adjust her attitude that fast.
“You have not bothered him once about taking a juicy slice of your butt, you have not once pulled your shirt down to show him your cleavage, in the two hours or so we've been reunited you haven't offered him oral sex which was a half an hour spaced affair during our goblin hunt, and also you haven't tried to bait him into an argument. On top of that, Corvayne is perhaps less hardened in his heart then his calm exterior would suggest. Without Wick there to help fend you off, I could see a tired Corvayne just letting nature take it's course.” Mister I turned to him and gave him a look that said 'sorry' but Corvayne was a mix of embarrassed and impressed.
Grunt grabbed a book, then plugged earbuds into his phone and picked up what Corvayne had guessed was a microwave with an opaque rounded front and two little metal lines coming off it, set it on the out of the way zombie body, and took it's place on the flat surface.
“Grunt, you going to keep Seru safe?” Corvayne asked.
The big man nodded then flipped his book open. Good. He owed Mister I as he didn't like squabbling. Secretly, he was glad it wasn't two people he liked that were causing the problems this time. He wasn't a fan of Nyxion or Seru. That Wick thought they needed Nyxion grated on him.
He went out the front door and found a key under the mat in front of the next door. Why did they need him? Was it a whim like the thing she suggested with Mosh? He was an exiled noble so he had money... money he couldn't safely tap on Cascadia. That or they died because the mine incident got linked to them. Connections. Nyxion knew who might be against the Collective, right? He was some sort of rebel. He definitely knew Wick from before, and Wick trusted him. Grunt, Mister I, and Dawn were three people who all said in one form or another that Wick didn't trust people easily. So either Nyxion was her weak point, or he had a chance to completely screw her over already and passed it. Wasn't he a poor choice? Nyxion stood out. He never dropped the noble act. She had said somewhere along the line she dated assholes. Wick did have an impulsive streak which is how she had gotten into trouble in the first place. Not that Corvayne regretted being stuck in a dungeon with her. So maybe she had another hunch.
It boiled down to did he trust Wick? He did, so he'd have try to keep Nyxion on board.
The next house had a few paintings that he took so Wick could get pictures of them. He glanced at the books and picked an old one to loot. Upstairs he checked the closets and bathrooms to grab some jewelery, killed a zombie in the basement with four shadow hands jabbing holes in it, then noticed a washing machine made of wood with a brass door. A treasure chest? He went around the corner, thought about a gas trap, then moved to the stairway and snaked a hand down. He opened it, stepped down, and claimed some gold and silver coins sitting at the bottom of the chest's drum. There were three pieces of clothing. Pants, a shirt, and a pair of socks. He put them in a laundry bag that had been nearby. More things to identify. Did Hari have to start over on that sundial if she came back?
The garage had a pair of zombies who hissed at him and started to stumble forward. Three spear jabs later he was rummaging through tools. There was a hammer that looked like it was made of pressed stone. He put it in his pack. Oh interesting! One of the things laying on a workbench looked like a shield belt. A flick of the switch on it and he confirmed that. Perhaps that was the pay of of this risky floor.
He let himself think as he puttered around the house. There were two dragons on what Wick called 'the boss floor', then two treasure chests. So, risk and reward. Was there a reward for possibly bringing Seru along? Or was Nyxion right? She wasn't going to turn any heads with her fighting skills. Maybe the right course would be to push her to do something for them that would keep her busy. Mister I's point about how she stopped badgering him for sex because she had gotten it had Corvayne wondering, as he rummaged through the kitchen. That could work... sending her to do something 'important' might be enough to keep her from blabbing about the weird space. The other three... well he couldn't do anything now. How many seconds behind a table facing a one way mirror would Dave last before he told his life story? Could Gary stop himself from telling everyone who would listen how cool the adventure he went on was? Jake, possibly, was already calling up four or five friends and telling them to grab rifles and hockey gear and come up to the park. That would be annoying if he had idiots with hunting rifles and tourists filing into the portal.
It would be whatever it was. Seru had mentioned that a bunch of people all thinking they were the first would diffuse suspicion, but anyone who heard about it would know where they heard it. Would a monk who killed six people without even saying a word torture someone to get them to talk? Corvayne took a spoon made of the same blue metal that other magic weapons were. What kind of magic did a spoon have? Maybe he'd throw it or something?
He stepped out to a screened off porch and saw Nyxion, LBC, and Wick were in the other porch. He shrugged, and opened a screen door to walk over to them.
Nyxion stunned him then by looking at Corvayne and standing, and offering a hand. He looked chastised. “Corvayne, I wish to apologize. Wick has informed me that I've been... inflammatory without needing to be. And that you actually wounded the enemy who defeated us. I have been underestimating your prowess. As well as you being our third leg of our triumvirate.”
Corvayne raised an eyebrow. “The third leg is a dick, Nyx.” He looked at the hand and sighed. It might be a forced gesture of peace, but Wick had gone to bat for the aristocrat. For as little as he trusted Nyxion, the man had died with them. Corvayne took the hand as Nyx looked like he was going to waver. “Accepted. I also think your reasoning is sound. Just disagreed because we can't be the same as the people we're fighting.” He stepped back and tossed Nyxion the shield belt. The noble looked surprised, then beamed.
“Corvayne, you rogue!” The man laughed. “Most scoundrels I know would keep one of these for themselves!”
Wick gestured to LBC. “So are you going to give it to your loyal right hand woman then?”
“Oh I didn't say I was good person did I? I seek power, glory, and revenge.” He snapped it on himself.
Lady Blood Claw actually laughed a little, her skin flashing stripes of red, pink, yellow, and sky blue. “That's the sort of person the 'young master' is hah.”
Corvayne motioned for them to return to the house. “Lets talk later. We should get off the floor. There's still a giant robot somewhere.”
Going back into the house Seru was laying on the coach, looking up while talking about college. Mister I held up a hand at Corvayne while not changing his focus on her. He shrugged, then turned to Wick and them. “Or let's loot the houses for a bit.” He said quietly. “Mister I, we'll be back in thirty or so.”
Nyxion rolled his eyes, but followed as they went out to the shared grass between a few homes and picked one at random to go ransack. A few more pictures, one that was a repeat. Lady Blood Claw looted the jewelery this time, and Nyxion followed Corvayne out to the garage. One of the larger double-zombies was waiting for them. The noble happily tested his shield belt by standing his ground and simply battering the thing to death with his mace as it tried to use it's mangled four hands to flail at him, mouths moaning in a low groan until Nyxion did enough damage for the thing to sigh and stop moving.
Checking the drawer he found more coins. To be honest, he was probably getting close to having too much as they could only sell so much of it to pawn shops before they raised questions about how they got it. He hadn't talked to Wick about if Brines or Horton were the leak. Brines would be his guess if he had to pick between those two. The man had been in charge of the crate.
Corvayne finished stuffing a handful of silver nuts and bolts into a pouch of his pack. “Nyxion, I got a question... what do you know about Brines, the man you had kidnapped to try to get that crate?”
Nyxion had grabbed a ladder and was positioning it to reach a shelf high up on a wall. “My agent on Cascadia had known James Brines... can you hold the ladder? My thanks good man, anyway my agent Ira told me the mine's head manager had tasked him with shipping something to a holding house. James actually is running the warehouse where they hold most of the oddities... and of course pretty jasper... that comes out of mines that had proper control. He does that for his father and his uncle. I think they were sending that crate to Tripic for a faction that isn't Goule's. Possibly Havorti's circle, since he and Martin Brines, one of the titular Brines Brothers who founded the company, work together in public.”
Nyxion came down from the ladder and shook his head, so they returned to the home's living room to talk.
“Martian Brines... he's James' grandfather. So what you're saying is it's very possible Brines sold us out?”
Nyxion nodded. “The Brines have influence here on Cascadia. If the staff-user who killed us was in play from the start, he'd have been at the mine. I think we can say the mercenary was one group, and that monk was working with the police in some capacity. I'll assume he got called in by Jimmy's grandfather until we have a better theory. I doubt have a freak who can stop time or teleport or whatever simply guarding ships like a common doughnut eating thug.”
Corvayne thought out loud. “You and your agent learned that the Brines had something they pulled out of the mine that they didn't want to leave at the mine or at their mansion or whatever. Someone broke in pretty much the night after we got it. Shit! They might have just happened to be looking to steal the crate! Crap, we missed that.”
“Grunt dispatched them without your aid. He told Wick about it on the drive back here. We can speak to this possible fourth group later.”
“Ok, well that might be a FOURTH group. They knew about it, so it's possible a miner blabbed it... no it was someone who knew where the crate was going. So anyway, you jumped at the chance to try to get it, because LBC knew the object was important and that the Magus, and most importantly for you that it might point to ships for the taking. Then the mercenaries, who took over and tried to get the package...”
“Or they just killed my man just because. I made sure to give the man a call and tell him they were on to him... I assume the ship touched down already so after we are done here... we can maybe try our stunt at the mine again.”
Corvayne frowned. “That's annoying. I'd say no since it might be what got us in trouble before, but they nuke the entire mine otherwise.”
A voice he wasn't expecting cut in. “Not a fan of trolly problems, are you Corvayne?”
He turned and saw that Mister I, Grunt, and Seru had followed them to the house they were looting. She looked more chipper, which he wasn't sure was a good thing.
“Planning is a pain. We just don't know enough.” He rubbed the back of his neck. It felt bad to admit that to Seru of all people.
She folded her arms and raised a finger in the air. “Well, whenever you get into trouble online, sometimes it's better to just go on the offensive. Get your followers to spam someone out and they gotta sit there and deal with bullshit.”
Lady Blood Claw shook her head at Seru. “You are not a very nice person, are you?”
Corvayne stopped. Seru had, somehow, made a good point about how it was harder to deal with a lot of people who all disclose all at once. He thought about it. One of the unarmed trainers, Smiles-And-Tears, often told his students that sometimes it was about control, focus, and strategy. And sometimes the best move was to just cause as much chaos as possible.
“When this is done, we are going to go clear the mine while we muddy the water. Who cares what 3 or 4 people say when you have thousands of workers all trying to sell the same stuff we did?”