Corvayne plummeted into the dark, his mind reeling from the look of desperation on Spear-Like-Water's face before a machine formed around her and she vanished. No one in the Watchers had ever asked for his help before. Nor had he seen those vines outside of the weird space rushing up to meet him.
He could look down and see the thorn ringed hills expanding as he fell. In a confusing moment he hit the ground arm first then he was suddenly standing up, unharmed, in the center of the huge stone gates faintly outlined in blue by the glowing storm roiling overhead. He forced himself to focus and spin, looking for the bright armored form of the lightning creature. On the second turn all the way around it was right in front of him, forcing him to tilt his head back to look at it. The apparition was twelve feet tall and bathed in dancing bolts of lightning.
He felt himself step back forward and shout, and it sounded both thunderous and muted. “What are the vines?!”
The being looked down at him. He forced himself to not look away, meeting what must be it's gaze behind the ornate blue armor that sizzled with power. “What is this place?! What are the vines?!”
The glowing figure shook it's head. “NOT. READY.”
He tried to grab it and in an instant he felt like he had put his palm on the surface of a star. He fell to the ground clutching his hand, feeling it cook and sear and his skin bubble and blacken as he sobbed in pain beyond anything he had known. He saw through blurred eyes the glowing blue shape blast upwards, feeling the wind in it's wake.
Time passed, and the pain faded, and he was alone under the ominous red, blue, and purple sky. He stood up, holding his hand up to see it intact. He had been to this place now four times. Twice he had picked a shadowy door and that did something to his shadows, so it had to be linked to him. His body didn't move... so perhaps this scene was something inside himself. Nobody else was experiencing something like it.
He skipped looking at the gates for now, instead focusing on the vines around the portals and hills. They ranged from finger thickness at their tips to being huge tubes as thick as he was, all of them made out of black and red and green and sometimes purple colors. They didn't look as solid as they felt, the substance appeared to him something like the liquid shadow that flowed out of him to shape into limbs, but his shadow hands had a clean look to them. They were the perfect black that suggested to him a panther at night. The thorns absorbed light but it was a sickly oily black, a faint hint of a sheen on it as if they were dirty.
Touching the vine, even on spots without thorns, would open small cuts. The vine would also start to shrink, pulling away from his finger. Touching them did something that hurt him. He walked around, trying to map the place as he waited to see if the wounds healed. As far as he could tell, the only change was the magnifying glass gate had been replaced with a different wood wrapped stone portal, this one with a compass over it.
The two gates he had ripped into previously were both uncovered by vines. He got now that the bowling ball going through a net or web was [gravity] thanks to Seru's ritual. Another thing he needed to test more. He tried summoning his shadowy hands, but they didn't appear. His spear did, which seemed odd since the hands were more a part of him then the spear was. Perhaps it came with him because of his perception of himself? In the previous set of floors his clothes had been burned off, but were still there when he arrived in this place. It not for his instinct for danger when he considered trying to wade through the vines, he'd take the entire place for a dream.
Corvayne walked down the hill to where there was a gap in the vines and tried touching one of them with his uncut hand. Doing so sent a staggering amount of pain up his arm, the kind that made it feel like his bones had locked up and his muscles were tearing. He yanked his hand back, lines of red already starting to weep blood. The vine had shrank a little but he'd need to completely drain about twenty to make a path through to the next hill. Perhaps the big one facing the center lead to that island as well as opening up a power?
That brought up the question about how many he could absorb. Mosh had mentioned three. What happens if he had too much power? That was something books didn't really get into. Usually you had magic, maybe one other thing a character did, but they didn't shop for powers like he was. Granted, he'd rather pay in money then the agony he was currently avoiding. So, did he go for the big gate and hope it had more vines because it offered more raw power? Or perhaps the compass, which might give him better information? Maybe not too much information, as a compass offered a direction rather then details. He noted that the hand that had previously taken a few small cuts had not healed like the one he had cooked on the lightning creature.
No, he'd been sitting on questions and mysteries for too long. He needed something to start pointing him the right direction in some way.
Corvayne looked at the vinces and steeled himself with a hastily muttered “A spear goes forward.” and started ripping his way to the compass door with his spear, feeling wounds appear all over him as he slashed one vine after another. He felt like his strength was starting to wane as he slashed the last branch and there was a snap as all the thorny vines around the gate dissolved.
He pushed the stone doors of the portal open and awoke looking up at fluffy clouds in a blue sky ringed with faces as Wick, Lady Blood Claw, Seru, Mister I, and Nyxion were all staring at him. They backed off as he sat up.
“How long was I out for?” He asked.
Wick shrugged. “About thirty seconds?”
Looking around, there was no sign of Spears-Like-Water left in the arena aside from a few puddles of salt water, nor any sign of the vine creature or the spectators. Instead, he saw the stairway had extended down to the arena grounds, then a doorway filled with diffuse light had formed in the center of the of the platform.
“Let's go.” He got up, feeling every bit of the punishment he had taken fighting Spears-Like-Water. Wick picked up his arm and helped him walk.
“You sure you don't want a potion?” She asked, struggling a little until he stopped leaning on her as much.
“No, I'm not sure... So you know how I go to this place every time we beat a boss, right? I see the same sort of thorns there as what Spears had around her core. Pulling them out felt the same here as it does there.”
“You didn't tell me she was a water blob.”
“She wasn't before. Hence me asking what the hell happened.” He stepped with Wick through the gate, landing at a spot that looked like a bluff overseeing a vast pine ringed lake. The forest stretched away to distant mountains. There was a picnic table set away from the edge with a chest, and two paths. One, to the right facing off the drop, started downhill with 'Exit' on it. The other was on the left and slopped up and into trees, with '11-15' on it.
He was about to walk up to the treasure chest when he felt the air shift around him. He saw a key rise from the ground halfway, it's shaft leaking shadow into a cartoon keyhole painted on the ground. The key turned, and there was a titanic click and the image vanished.
Before, this would have just been another thing that happened that Corvayne was utterly lost on, but the compass gate had done something to how he thought. He closed his eyes and while he couldn't read the messages, he felt them telling him they were the first people to clear the tenth floor, and he knew the tower was now 'open' with the one-way exit becoming two-way. He caught something about 'soul points' and 'curses' and 'mindscape' too.
His eyes popped open. “I think we just unlocked all those one-way doors.”
Nyxion folded his arms. “Great. Make it even easier for everyone and their kids to come loot this place out from under our noses.”
Corvayne rolled his eyes. “I also felt words about souls, curses, and a mindscape. Lady Blood Claw, did anyone speak of them before?”
Turning to her, he saw her skin go from light pink to charcoal as she thought about it. She looked up. “I want you to tell me exactly what you've seen in this place your going.”
Corvayne looked around. The distraction of those messages faded back into exhaustion. “Treasure first, we'll talk on the car ride back how about? We also have to figure out where Grunt went.”
Lady Blood Claw turned from gray to teal colored, waves of neon green flowing across her.
Corvayne turned back to the treasure chest, which popped open when he touched it. Inside was a lot of objects tied into neat parcels. On top was a gold ring with inscribed flowing arrows pointing to the center of the band. When he picked it up, he felt connected to something. The compass power was guiding him a little perhaps, usually he just picked an item up and had to fool around with it to activate it.
He looked back at everyone, then put the ring on. As the cool metal slipped around his finger, the connection he felt before was tangible, like a web out to something. He reached out for what was connected with the ring, feeling his hand dip into what felt like a cool dry cellar before it touched plastic bags, a sleeping roll, plastic bottles full of fluid... he pulled on the plastic bottle and a healing potion appeared in his hand.
Mister I let out a sound that Corvayne would not think a man his age could make. It was a squeaking sound that had him and Seru looking around for a possible monster before he noticed that Mister I was pointing at him, finger shaking.
“That's IT! It's a storage ring! They are real!”
“Oh yeah. They have things like this in stories. Bags of holding.” Corvayne looked at it then tried putting his cleaver into it, then checked how fast he could pull it out. Not as fast as having it on hand with shadow hands.
Corvayne held the ring up to inspect it's fit on his finger. “It's lighter then everything that's inside of it right now. I'd like to have it... but I also see Mister I is salivating over it.”
Nyxion gestured. “It's also one of those things that will sell for an insane amount of money, there's nobody who wouldn't want one.”
Lady Blood Claw shrugged. “I pack light.”
Corvayne pulled the rest of the objects in the ring out as well as the rest of the chest. The parcels under the ring were labeled. Three ingots of Cascadian metal packed into a box, a few wrapped spools of slugsilk cloth, one well wrapped and cooled parcel of something squishy labeled as 'Royal Bloodhorn Meat' in black marker, a pouch that held gems, then under it all was a pair of brass bracelets with stylized lizards on them, an empty bottle, and a whip that looked like a snake except with tails on either end. The bottom of the chest was a wood case holding a painting. Opening it he saw that it looked like an eagle eye view of a beach with a dab of red. That supported the treasure idea.
The objects that had been in the storage ring turned out to be credits and sandwhich bags. The stacks of money were about two thousand credits each, with seven packed. He guessed the dungeon set one aside for Grunt.
He loaded it all up into the ring and lead the way out into a setting sun lit forest. The moment he stepped out to the wooded trail leading to the parking lot he heard a helicopter somewhere overhead and he dove under a tree. He used his cloak and looked around, recalling that the teleporting monk had appeared after the same sort of sounds. Surrounded by pine trees and crouching in ferns, he couldn't see much sky which meant he couldn't be seen, far more important. The others came out of an empty arch formed by two dead tree and he managed to get them to crouch by hand motions and example, all except Seru who was confused as to why everyone was hiding before Wick hissed at her.
Stolen novel; please report.
Seru whispered “What the hell now? We are OUTSIDE.”
Corvayne turned to her. “Might be what killed us. It also had a helicopter noise associated with it.”
Seru's face went pale. “This is bullshit! I got out, I should be safe!”
Corvayne heard more helicopters swirling around, particularly back over the park. He put a hand on Seru's shoulder. “Quiet. Take long, soft breaths.” He then turned to Wick. “I think we need to ditch the car for now.”
Mister I pointed in the direction of the parking lot. “Before you make a hasty decision, consider this: that's my truck!”
Wick folded her arms. “Well? Anything in the truck you are willing to die for?”
The monk thought about it. “No, I cleaned it out since we might need the room for loot. But the radio is only ten years old!”
Lady Blood Claw kept her voice especially even. “How will you ever find another like it?”
Nyxion frowned. “So then, we are walking back? None of you have a car.”
Seru coughed and raised her hand, speaking as it went up. “Um. I could call my mom to pick us up somewhere else.”
Mister I pointed away from the sun. “Move in the direction of the coast, follow valleys to Copper River? There's a bridge about 20 miles away but there's a town there.”
Nyxion groaned. “I just spent what, three days running around in the woods like an unwashed savage and now we got another night of it ahead of us?”
Corvayne held up a hand. “Before we start cutting across the woods west, I want to look at the stairway.”
Wick looked at him like he was nuts. “That's the first place they are going to look!”
“We need to see if this is our adversary or if we can cut our losses and make a break for a different world through that portal. With Grunt off on his own and Hari and Mosh in there it's not ideal to do that. If I don't check now, I'm not going to know who's here.”
Nyxion ran a hand through his hair. “They might not know about the stairway yet, they didn't post people at this exit after all.”
Corvayne felt cold at the thought. “Or they haven't got through floor five yet. Move!”
He lead them off the side of the trail into the brush. Moving through the woods while staying out of open sight was hard. The ground was a quagmire of mud, sucking at his boots where it wasn't a wall of plants brushing at his face and eyes. He only caught a short glimpse of a single black helicopter through a gap in the trees after a few minutes of cutting through the woods, but his ears made him think there were three.
He stumbled out of the green underbrush to a path worn through the woods. Not an official one, but a game trail. He caught a whiff of something unpleasant, a sort of wet animal odor. Smell aside, Corvayne was pretty happy to find the trail. It was hidden enough that he couldn't see more then patches of orange clouds above him between pine branches. Following the trail to a fork, he held up a hand and put his cloak's hood up over his head then twisted it's clasp, causing it to flow into patterns and shapes around him. He followed the little trail uphill until he was looking at the meadow from shaded vantage point. He could see a single helicopter had landed near the staircase and portal. The stairs were catching the setting sun.
Corvayne's heart nearly stopped when he saw the man who had killed him climbing up the stairs to take a look at a now visible hole in reality. The monk stepped in, then stepped out. Watching his enemy move around, Corvayne suppressed any thoughts he had of approaching. The monk rubbed his graying beard, then did something odd. He touched his face with the palm of his hand, cupped it, then pulled something out of himself. As his hand moved Corvayne saw another monk flash into existence. The second one was wearing what looked like the same things but with maroon robes. The second monk stepped into the portal and the first turned and did a little set of hops down the steps then walked over and leapt up into the helicopter.
Corvayne felt this was a pretty good indication that his enemy knew of the portal, and he crept backwards away from the clearing as the chopper took off. He still heard a pair sweeping the area, but he could see that the chopper carrying the blue robed monk was jetting straight south towards Cascadia.
Corvayne returned to the group. “They know about the tower here. The monk somehow split himself and put a copy in the portal.”
Wick groaned. “So there's at least two of him running around? We still don't know if he knew about the tower last time but I don't like having my best routes of escape cut off by this guy!”
Lady Blood Claw was shaking her head. “I am not sure this is related to us. Even if all three of those men you saved went and told everyone they know, how long would it take to reach the right channels?”
Corvayne started leading them into the woods as Wick was responding. “We can't risk that it's just happenstance. It's too soon for it to be related to Corvayne unlocking the entrance, yes, but one of them drives back an hour, starts calling four weird friends who all own guns, right? Because if they buy into what Seru said with levels, the dungeon makes you stronger AND gives you money. One of those gun guys is a Collective agent or something, and knows they can make money reporting on the site, so they do that. Heck, if you told me that Jake guy acted like hot shit because he was a goverment agent I'd not question it at all.”
Corvayne didn't have anything to add, instead moving ahead and doing his best to lead them through the dimming forest. He was glad that the brush trails had moved up and out of the muddy low ground at the park along slopes of forest hills. His only complaint was how often he was following the trail blind, pushing through bushes and sticks as it winded around trees and only sometimes broke out into more clear pine forests.
His internal complaining manifested when he turned a bend and found himself facing a seven foot tall bigfoot not five feet away.
The creature had also frozen, it's fur reeking a strong animal scent that made Corvayne's eyes water. It had dark eyes that gleamed with intelligence. It was assessing him, perhaps. Was it trying to determine how wounded he really was? Maybe it saw him favoring one foot, or how torn up his arm was from ripping those vines out of Spear's core.
His thoughts tapered off when he saw the creature holding it's hands up and backing away while giving him a nervous looking smile.
Corvayne held his own hands up in front of him, mostly to show they were empty. “I'm not going to hurt you if you leave us alone. Deal?”
The creature nodded vigorously, hands still in front of it as it stepped off the trail to let him and the group pass.
“Thank you. Sorry for intruding.” Corvayne waved at the monster and kept walking, then stopped a half step later as he thought about Wick. “Actually, if you can understand me, I'll trade you some meat for a small favor.”
The creature put it's hands down and pointed at itself. Corvayne nodded.
A while later the group was one quilled porcupine steak lighter. Corvayne was walking through the forest with a very happy Wick bouncing behind him. The helicopter noises had started to fade as they moved into the woods away from the scenic trails around the park. They were far from home, and maybe not fully safe, but in a better position then they were an hour or two ago.
“I don't care if it looks fake as hell, Corvayne! You're the best!” Wick whispered, gigging as she looked at her phone. Corvayne thought it was interesting that the bigfoot knew enough to understand not only standing still for a moment while someone took a photo but resting his hand on her shoulder and grinning for the camera. An idle thought came to him involving taking a bunch of hotdogs out to the park and trading them for crash course in sneaking around the woods from furry experts. The smell wasn't so bad once you'd been hiking through it for a while.
It wasn't too dark for everyone to see yet, and Corvayne felt that with how clear the afternoon was he could probably lead them by moonlight through the woods. Nobody was willing to risk using a flashlight to travel aside from Seru.
Mister I was the one who asked her with more then a little mirth, “Are you afraid of the dark?”
“I wasn't that scared until this week! I nearly died in the woods because I didn't see something.”
Lady Blood Claw was at the back of the group. “If it makes you feel better, you are probably stronger then anything that spills over from the portals like that friendly shambler.”
Nyxion asked a beat faster then Corvayne could. “Spill over?”
Corvayne looked back to see the tall alien woman scanning their dim surroundings. “Towers tend to bleed weak monsters into the world around them. I'd expect those armadillos and maybe goblins. Perhaps furry slugs.”
Seru laughed. “I wonder if the baby fuzzy slugs are cute.”
Corvayne could hear Nyxion's sneer in his voice. “They'd eat out of the palm of your hand! Literally, as they'd be eating your palm.”
The trail had started to peter out as the brush became sparse. Corvayne called for them to stop once they reached older and deeper pine forest, with huge trees lined with ferns. The compromise between stopping and going on with limited light was broke by Wick saying that it was better to get the hell out of the woods if people were looking for you rather then worrying about a phone light pointed at the ground.
They pressed on as the moon rose and shading everything in blue-silver light. The steady crunch of boots on pine needles and rustle of them stepping through ferns mixed into the sounds of the forest at night, mostly crickets and owls. As they went downhill, Corvayne started hearing frogs as they found more muddy patches.
He called for a fifteen minute rest as clouds rolled in above them, shrouding the forest again and pulling their world tight around the little bit of phone light shone on the ground. He found a log with a tree at it's back and sighed as he sat. The entire walk he had been thinking about Spear-Like-Water's plaintive cry for help. Did showing mercy for a monster risk his friends more? That morphed from worrying about wick to worrying about Grunt and Mosh and Hari and if he'd see them again. Which shifted to thinking about how to test his powers. Then he started making plans for getting Wick out of Cascadia. How could they get past the killer monk? Where would he find videos of people using weapon special attacks? Should they tell Seru to info dump about the park? Could he make Wick happy?
He didn't notice he had nodded off until he felt a hand gently shake him awake. Everything was shadows and splotches of moon touched blue, forcing Corvayne to blink a few times to properly see who was standing over him.
It was Lady Blood Claw. She straightened when she saw he was awake and spoke very quietly. “Pardon me waking you. Wick wanted to wait for you to rouse yourself, but I figured a full eight hour stop was beyond what you would allow yourself.”
Corvayne nodded. “Thank you... I'm surprised she didn't wake me.” He looked and saw Wick was sleeping on her bedroll by the foot of the log. Mister I, Nyx, and Seru were also asleep, not ten feet away. It seemed it was just him and Lady Blood Claw. “How long was I out for?”
“It's been four hours.” She pulled out a phone and showed him it was midnight.
“Good. Great. Super.” Corvayne looked around.
“I wish not to pry, but you look worried.”
Corvayne looked up at Lady Blood Claw. In the dim light it was hard to tell what color she was, not that he had figured out what the colors meant. Yet. Another thing on the list. “Right. Sorry, I am worried. I must be tired if people can tell.” He laughed a little bit.
“Yes. I usually envy your iron control.” She said with a faint smile, not letting a hint of the irony of such a statement come through her voice.
Corvayne only wished he was as calm as she thought he was. “We gotta beat this guy. Somehow. I've never had to plan to actually kill anybody, let alone someone several times stronger then me. But I want to protect Wick, and if that's my goal then I have to be strong enough they can't just crush me.”
Lady Blood Claw shook her head at him. “Tough words, but I hear fear in your voice. You are worried about turning your spear from creatures to people.”
Corvayne nodded. “I was okay with goblins in that they didn't act like... people. I don't like the idea of killing a person.”
“I saw with the girl.” LBC looked away. A hint of annoyance.
Corvayne folded his arms. “I worry something like that could be a mistake. It might not even have been a person, but just a monster trying to target my weakness.”
Lady Blood Claw was quite for a while after he spoke, finger tapping on her leg for a few minutes before she spoke.
“You have the control to empty your mind, right? To think or not think about things? That is what I was told to do. I do not remember the first time I killed another person, but I remember an older apprentice teaching me to bury emotion. Either bury it, or face pain.” He heard her breath in then breath out. “Did they teach you something like that?”
Corvayne laughed a little at how tactfully she had phrased a request that he just 'suck it up'.
He saw that the little laugh might have hurt LBC's feelings so he quickly answered her question. “They put a lot of stock into stoic bullshit lines about how history is lines, and you have to decide if your line goes on or your enemies does. No, most of what I learned about burying was self taught. They would run me into the ground if I talked back. Watchers like One-Last-Note would specifically drag out sparring if he thought I was being weak. Which was all the time, but it only made it worse if you showed how unhappy you were that your body couldn't keep up. No, the odd things about me are all just... me trying to keep myself going.”
“Use those tools to protect what's important to you..” Lady Blood Claw said and Corvayne wasn't sure how well she saw in the dark but she was looking at him. “Do what needs to be done, and afterwards, let your friends help you with the feelings that come after.”
He thought about things for a little bit.
“We're going to fight him.” Corvayne said and felt some of the stress melt away with the certainty he had. “I mean, I had been trying to figure out how to run... but it would just be putting off the inevitable. They know about our way out. Heck, with the truck there, they could be waiting at Icariii's door when we show up.”
“If that monk is on the straight and narrow and they can trace his truck, I will eat this longsword.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Everything?” Lady Blood Claw had a hint of amusement in her voice as she continued. “Too many skills. Too many interests, and he's too good with the bow.”
“He probably just hunts a lot.” Corvayne said lamely.
“Also he happens to be an underground street doctor. Who is also a champion archer living an hour from anywhere to practice, but he's also a monk. A monk of a very nebulous sect that doesn't have any other members where he's living. Yes, old town is poor, but the center itself is large. His truck is made up of a few different makes. It's not rattling because it's poorly made, it rattles because it's a custom mashup.”
Corvayne laughed when he figured it out. “You know he's not going to get traced to the car because you did background checks on everyone.”
She looked at him and smiled with satisfaction. “Of course. Grunt is suspicious as well, but he fits what I'd expect out of a reformed criminal jumping ship and his reputation about town is sterling. I suspect he was a space pirate, as he picked up work at the space port helping maintain ships for a few years before he moved to Old Town. That or a private security type. That might be why he tries not to talk or write, fewer samples to compare to someone who's wanted.”
Corvayne was amused. “Do you think I'm who I say I am?”
“Yes, but the weird weapon thing is what puts the most weight behind that. It reeks of the weirdness the Magus had following him. I also don't think anyone I've fought was ever trained to overload a shield with mass instead of force.”
He looked over to where Wick was laying. She didn't want to talk about her past. He suspected Lady Blood Claw know, but even without her saying a word he suspected Wick was a noble. It was possible she had been a young maid or something, but Nyx treated her like an equal.
“Let's skip Wick, she didn't want to get into her past. It's enough that Nyx knows her, right?”
LBC nodded. “Fair.”
“Can I ask a question about you? It seems like your colors change...”
He thought he saw her skin lighten a few shades. It was hard to make out what color it was, but it was obvious. Her voice sounded heated for a change. “Why... why would you wish to know that?”
“Sorry. I didn't know it was a sore topic.” Corvayne was mentally noting that it had to be mood related. Perhaps when they had some time to breath he'd put together a list. He already was guessing orange was annoyance or frustration.
He thought she'd be quiet, but she turned to him. “You said something before. About seeing things after you defeat a guardian. Tell me what you see when you pass out. You had said the words mindscape, cursed, and soul points came to you.”
Corvayne started to describe how he chose powers. He noticed that she had lightened in skin tone but had waves of color passing over her. He could see her lean in. He couldn't figure out what her look meant, but after he finished speaking she pointed at him.
“Corvayne!” She realized how loud she was then dropped her voice. “When the Magus curses someone, there's green, blue, red, purple vines with spikes on them that appear near him. A landscape full of them, that only you experience and seems to affect you... you are wrestling with them to get powers in a place that must be some sort of representation of your self...”
“Lady Blood Claw, I think you are projecting. I'm having a great time here...” He fidgeted.
“Tell me something from when you were six years old. Now!” Lady Blood Claw snapped, and he could tell her skin was turning a blue color.
“I... I don't remember being a kid.” He felt his guts twist.
“How about your name? Do you remember the first time you picked up a spear? Any important day in your life before you were an outcast?”
Corvayne felt himself freezing up. She kept going. “It messes with your memory, doesn't it? You don't act like a cursed person most of the time, but you look like you're squirming right now.” She took a deep breath, then spoke in an even tone. “Corvayne, look at me.”
He didn't feel himself looking away, but her saying it made him aware of how much he wanted to get out of this conversation. He forced himself to meet her eyes. Lady Blood Claw leaned in, and her face wasn't the tough alien warrior who mostly glared at people. He saw her as a girl then, despite being taller then him. He saw sadness and kindness and pity as she took his hand, her own warm. She squeezed. Corvayne knew what she was about to tell him.
“You are like me. You're cursed by the Magus.”