Corvanye didn't need to push his gravity power on the way back from carrying the woman they had found, Laura, back to the entrance of the dockside floor. One of the medics who had set up a tent near the entrance had tried to get him to stay, but Corvayne didn't know her, or her group, and so after recommending Mister I at the Old Town Community center for therapy, he walked off while they fussed over her.
The woman had said thanks, so that was enough for him. The long run helped him calm down and empty his mind, drifting through the dockside in a blur of rusted steel buildings and piles of crates and banks of fog drifting over shallow water.
The round trip took him about two hours, to which he once again thanked his boots for. Perhaps when Hari had been flipping out about them way back when he got them, she had actually undersold how useful they were.
Corvayne didn't know what the large bridge was, so they elected to instead move along the extra wide canal that it was built across. In the mist he saw the large metal tube they had camped by formed an X with another arched titanic steel beam, and the bridge looked like a sluice.
The group moved slowly, running across enough monsters that stops became more natural as they rotated practicing with their weapons. Corvayne pulled out a spare grill from his ring and Ayame helped him grill some of the large pieces of crab meat to make sandwiches. He sat and ate with Mosh and Varia and June. During the meal Mosh telling them about growing up on a space ship the size of a solar system, with details about all the strange machines they used to make impossible food like foot by foot cubes of steak with layers of potato and veggies and mushrooms forming smaller cubes between layers of other meats, and a yarn the weird group projects the ship would undertake as something to do including knitting a scarf so long it was shared between two people on a different planets, and how he could change his rooms to resemble anything, sleeping in a cave lit by moss, eat breakfast under fall foliage overlooking the mountains, and work in a hut sitting on a tropical beach.
After lunch Corvayne had the group fan out in threes, with instructions to leave from a central point, explore a point of interest, then return. Over the next few hours of moving through the floor he helped open two chests, the first having a half dozen healing potions, two rings, a pair of uncurse scrolls, a pair of gloves that had the texture of bark, a sword made of blue metal that chimed like crystal when moved, a black robe that trailed mist, and a bundle of lumber. Lady Blood Claw acted as a test subject for the gear they found. First were the gloves who's obvious effect was coating her limbs in a thin layer of bark. Some testing showed it acted as a low powered shield. Kayla, ahem, Bearer-of-Burdens wanted that, as she fought with her hands. She slipped the gloves on then put her brass knuckles over them, somehow all fitting on her fingers. The bark skin grew back after a few seconds but broke whenever she punched something.
The black robe seemed to be able to flow when Lady Blood Claw willed it, changing it's shape. It was not a strong replacement for armor, but did seem to slow things swung through it and the material recovered from being jabbed. June and Ayame both were interested, with Brines directing it to June after she put her bid for the trip into it, slipping it on and turning it into shadowy material to something that somehow compressed her rather bulky cloth armor into a sleeker ninja outfit. Corvayne had some questions as to where the former Tower Folk had seen a ninja, but then again he didn't know how long she'd been washing clothes for adventurers. She had probably seen and slept with some interesting folks along the way.
The humming blade seemed to create a burst of sound when it hit anything, the chime eroding things the blade touched. Varia, Curtis, and Brines himself all wanted the blade. Corvayne didn't bid as he had a good selection of weapons at the moment, but he thought about it for a little bit.
Varia and Curtis both bid, so there was a dice roll by Brines to determine who got it, with Curtis pumping his fist. Varia looked annoyed and muttered, “You don't even know how to use it.” before she stepped away to go sulk away from the room the chest was in.
The rings didn't have an obvious effect but neither were they cursed so Brines took one and Mosh snagged another. “We'll get Hari to tell us what's what when we get back!”
Corvayne's own take was three of the healing potions, under the assumption he was the most likely to dive into trouble. He was a little sad no one disagreed with his own argument. At all.
Brines took the other scrolls and leftover healing potions, with Corvayne storing the stack of wood for him. Mosh had wanted it but wasn't going to waste his bid so early.
Corvayne started keeping his eyes open for ships as they woke up the second morning. The information stated that was the sign of a standard staircase, and he felt the group was ready to fight slightly more dangerous monsters, having cut their teeth on urchins and crabs. A few new monsters had started to flow into the mix on the second day: Floating piranha that moved at a steady pace but constantly gnashed their teeth, starfish that grabbed and threw random objects such as rocks or parts of crates, and passive dog sized cuttlefish who kept their distance.
Corvayne noted the little cephalopods seemed content to scavenge urchin quills. He sat during a meal break watching them crawl up from the water with a large number of extra tentacles on their bellies, turn invisible when they saw the party, and scuttle back into the water when they didn't have anyone looking. The group agreed to not fight them after Lady Blood Claw, looking stern but feeling playful, started trying to match her skin color to it's pattern of one that had frozen in place...then had it follow her for an hour after they started hiking again.
Mosh looked between it and LBC. “Which one's the real Blood Claw?”
Lady herself was not amused. “Are you trying to be a pest?” She reached into her pack and tossed the creature a little bit of dried meat, which it took then scurried around a corner, feasting as it kept one of it's orange sized eyes on her. Corvayne thought it explained why he had seen the same behavior three times, even if he hadn't seen LBC feed it the other two times.
“We never tested if Wick could take a slime out of the dungeon. Do you want a pet squid?”
Lady Blood Claw put her hands on her hips and frowned at him. “That's absurd.” she said while flashing a happy pink for a moment.
Ayame pointed at it. “It's a cuttlefish, and it might not be good to take it out of here, different salt concentrations in sea water would mess it up.”
Lady Blood Claw looked at her new friend regretfully. “Hey, get out of here!” She sounded angry but her skin was the pure blue of sadness. “Go on, get out of here! We don't want you anymore!” She waved her hands and the little squid scampered off. Corvayne heard her say “Goodbye, friend.”
Curtis shook his head. “We could have eaten that... oh yeah! Corvayne, I wanted to point something out... there's pipes that don't hook up to anything in these buildings! Go from ceiling right into the floor.”
He thought that just sounded like something for rain. “So it might go to a sewer system?”
Curtis shook his head. “I thought that at first too but, you'll notice that there's all sorts of greebles on the water line, but there isn't pipes near here.”
Corvayne shrugged. “These worlds are like fever dreams. This is one of the most sensible ones I've seen yet.”
The plumber nodded. “Yeah, that's why it's odd. I wouldn't mention it but the other buildings before actually had proper PVC downspouts that would divert rain from above to channels in the dockside and going inside... when there's a sink it also routes it off to the wall and drains, you could follow the water to channels and out to the sea. Cept these buildings here it just goes down. I know, it's not anything, I'm just trying to be useful. Everybody else is keeping up and I'm Mr. slow guy.”
Corvayne patted the older man on the shoulder. “You showed up. And you know, let's take a moment and see if there's a basement on one of those buildings. A lot of times if you can find something people wouldn't notice, The Tower likes to put chests there.”
He waved to the group then lead them into the building in question, which like many of the warehouses had crates around the sides with a few piles where monsters could hide in the center. Corvayne had been ignoring the containers, as opening them he had found they always contained dried pieces of coral, piles of shells, bleached starfish, or fishing nets.
Mosh called Corvayne over and pointed to a pipe that wasn't connected to an outflow. “This goes from floor to ceiling. So why's it got a knob?”
Corvayne did the only thing anyone in his place would do and twisted the little knob until it stopped and he heard a click, then there was a rumble as a patch of floor started to sink, forming a stairway down.
Corvayne lead the way down, Lady Blood Claw and Curtis following him as he went twenty steps down to an open space hidden under the docks and water. It looked like a squat version of the flood tunnels, a 12 foot tall underground chamber with vaulted arches extending as far as Corvayne could see. The stone and wood walkways formed bridges over water lit from below. Looking over the lip of the path by the stairs, Corvayne could see the bottom of the pool, maybe twenty feet deep, was lined with glowing lights that outlined sea creatures swimming over it. He could also see what looked like rows of empty lobster cages bobbing gently in the water.
“Hey Boss!” Mosh tapped his shoulder. “Treasure chest!”
Corvayne turned and saw there was a brass rimmed chest, fancier then the old wood ones he'd dealt with before. Corvayne gestured for everyone to head back up the stairs. “It's too nice, I feel like it's definitely trapped.”
Corvayne only got as far as poking the chest with his spear when it started to spew acid everywhere, forcing him to run back up the stairs as it spewed a seemingly endless stream of acid.
Corvayne was pleased he didn't lose any gear as he stepped into the pitted circle and repeated his chest opening technique, and set off a barrage of crossbow bolts in front of the chest, which finally fell apart to reveal a scroll, a potion that looked milky, and what looked like a pair of knuckles lined with jagged shards of ice. Corvayne was split between calling them knuckles, punch daggers, or cestus given how they covered the knuckles, how prominent the ice shards were, and their heft.
“I think we can give it to Bearer-of-Burdens, unless someone else wants to punch things?”
“If I can wear them with these oak gloves, sure.” The woman accepted the pair of knuckles, and took off her brass knuckles. “Oh, they keep my hands nice and cool! I might wear these while doing deliveries in summer!”
Corvayne thought for a moment. “You wouldn't happen to know a Bearer-of-Burden, no 'S', would you?”
The woman's hat raised a little. “No?”
Corvayne nodded. “Okay. There was a guy in my village named that. He was... sort of gloomy.” In fantasy stories, he was the sort of tortured soul who became a warlock who summoned demons and tried to get people to drink their blood, a perfectionist necromancer with anger issues, or a dragoon. As an actually miserable kid, Corvayne didn't really connect with the overacting that Bearer-of-Burden had.
Reaper-of-Fish looked between them. “We could ask my dad. He's part of the 'native settler' community, I thought that's where you got the idea from for the names.”
“Huh, might explain why Dawn has that name then...” Corvayne rubbed his chin. But Reaper-of-Fish shook his head.
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“She ain't involved with us. There was a big to-do years back when she first showed up. Dad said some intelligence guys dug for something and nobody knows her. There wasn't a missing girl her age, the name's never come up in the official name ceremonies either. I mean, I think she probably just saw our names and decided something that sounded like that for a pseudonym, right?”
Corvayne started guiding the group through the room as he spoke with Reaper. “There's something about her, I have a knack for feeling how dangerous something is, and she screams danger when I think about her like that.”
“Well, the name thing is just sort of a social wee-gee board thing anyway, like hypnosis, right boys?” Ears-of-Steel moved up to join her friends.
Corvayne was interested but stepped a little ahead and used [Flow-Like-Water] to kill a pair of urchins, their bodies falling off the side of the path with a plunk into the glowing water. He didn't see other monsters so waited a little.
“Can you guys tell me about the name ceremony?”
Reaper perked up. “Yeah! I mean, you and that Seru chick got a lot more people talking about native settlers, folks who made homesteads before the big ship came. Basically, the name ritual is you have a bunch of people who know the person sit in a circle around the person. Ideally, it's a community. They each take a scrap of paper, and you have some words they each say, and you gotta make an offering of something that evaporates before you go, so most people do salt water but some big wigs do wine, I mean you can offer it right then but it works best if you 'pay' first you know? Anyway, then the person in the center offers their name. The people who know them wait for a sign of how many words they gotta put down. There's drummers who can drum it, they sort of mess around until they get a rhythm that makes out the pattern of the right name. Can't make a name with no pattern. Then you have those folks in the circle write what they come up with. Whatever the majority of them write, that's your name.”
Corvayne stopped and turned to raise an eyebrow. “Majority... wouldn't you get 40 names from 40 people? Like, I might be Spear-changes-Shape or, if my old village had their say, Guy-we-Hate, but don't people tend to see the same person a bunch of different ways?”
He heard someone, probably Varia, say “Too-many-Wives.”
Reaper laughed. “Yeah, you get some duds, but I mean, I had twenty people who came, you know, buddies, kids I fished with, old folks who I shoveled the walks for in August blizzards... got eighteen people who thought I was Reaper-of-Fish. I've done the writing too, for example, with these two goofballs they got six slips of paper with the same name, mine included. Other folks it's like, you ever have a thunderbolt hit you with an idea? Where you gotta drop everything man?”
Corvayne shrugged. “It comes sometimes when I fight and remember a skill I saw...” Well, except for when he made [Storm Thrust] which was his own take on [Power Thrust].
“Yeah! Well, that's how it happens.”
Corvayne smiled. “Well, is it possible to trade a three-beat name for a regular one using the ritual?”
This made Reaper confused. “I dunno, maybe? I can show you how to do it, but I never heard of someone giving the ritual name away.”
That aside, they were also nearing the first large pillar in the underground space. Corvayne was pleased to see stairs up carved into the rock. “Bingo. I'm sure this next floor will be untouched.”
The stairway was odd. Rather then the cool blue stone he had seen before, it was sort of gray and faded. It was still the same design as other breaks between floors, with thirty or forty steps that wound him up to an outdoor area, in this case a hazy view from a tall hill of a set of islands that looked like Cascadia.
No, it was Cascadia. Corvayne could see he was standing on Dolphin island, with a view of the Barrier island he had ridden his bike on to his right, and Mere island ahead. There were far fewer train tracks and roads, and the connections between the islands looked to be much simpler two lane concrete bridges. No cars were visible, but there were automatic trains running and he could see flocks of white birds and what looked like people down on the ground.
The whole group were native Cascadians aside from Himself, Mosh, June, and Lady Blood Claw, and they whistled at the long view of the sound and The Key-Ring islands.
“We're going to travel as a group and pick spots to spread out and rally back after we explore. I'll go with Curtis, Ayame, and Horton. Lady Blood Claw, I'm going to have you go with Reaper, Ears, and Bearer. Mosh, I'd like you and the girls to take Brines.”
Ayame looked nervous. “Is this going to be okay? Isn't it safer in a group?”
“We're going to pick some fights to make sure this floor is okay, but this environment is ideal for learning the basics, as you are familiar with how things are laid out.”
Horton gestured at the vista they were viewing. “This isn't Cascadia though.”
“Well, no, but it's the same land footprint right?”
“Oh, well not totally. They built up some parts of the islands to put down all those railway tracks. This looks like a what-if version of Cascadia where it had been a typical logging and mining colony.”
The left the starting area, a radio tower near the crest of dolphin island and followed a gravel trail down the green slope to town. The buildings were a slightly different style, reminding him a little of the folding suburbs from the Cascadia National park dungeon.
Corvayne and Lady Blood Claw took point and tried hailing a shadow person, who turned and pulled out a knife and rushed them. Two spear blows dropped the monster, which bled out gray ashy smoke as it's clothes fell to the ground.
Some testing showed that pairs or trios of monsters just sort of fanned out then attacked rather then ran for help or communicated. They were dangerous, many having knives, but after twenty minutes of engagements Corvayne had them split from a small fountain plaza with a circle of shops.
Ayame stayed behind Corvayne, the older woman perhaps a little too close. Curtis was behind her, with Horton doing readings and picking through desks and drawers when the Corvayne called a store clear.
Corvayne looked for and found a few stashes of credits and a few paintings of locations, which probably wasn't quite as critical with the tower locations becoming public, but he figured at some point there would be a database for Seru to post all the locations too so he took the paintings. Besides, he had a house for them, right?
Actually... wouldn't that mean people would break into his house to do the slime dungeon? He hadn't even moved into it!
Ah well, as long as they didn't burn the place down, it was fine. Though, he'd have to see if Wick wanted to stay there for a little bit. Even though it was more likely Hari would be game.
There were two shades waiting for them in closed rooms during the second fan-out, with Ayame opening a door to one and in a panic killing it while also getting injured, either from her own weapon or the letter opener the shade had. The cook, terrified for a moment, suddenly stood up rod straight when Corvayne suggested going back to the meet up point early and insisted he bandage the wound and they keep looking, so Corvayne took a table cloth from the house they were in and wrapped it around her wrist.
The room with the shade did have a trophy made of the blue metal that many magic items were covered in, so he took it and searched the desk like Horton had been doing, finding a bag of dried herbs too. A gift for Mister I.
Horton had found cash but also stacks of papers. “This is going to cause inflation.”
Corvayne shrugged. “I think you can spend this money at the bar after floor 5, so maybe not?”
They met back up and saw that everyone was fine, no major injuries. They reported a few shades had hidden in their buildings, and a group found a stairway downwards in a basement. Lady Blood Claw had gone in and reported that the floor it lead to looked like chalky cliffs with over blue skies and water and tons of vivid green plant life that clearly they'd need to climb and balance on to move from point to point.
“No, I was not going to do that, not over three hundred foot drops. Not even with a shield belt.” She said while turning the green shade that signified fear. Behind her, Ears, Reaper and Bearer were all looking disappointed.
Corvayne reminded them that if they wanted to organize an expedition to explore that floor, people were always looking for new spots.
“Yeah, but it's not the same without the gruff alien lady barking orders.” Ears-of-Steel added. Corvayne had to admit it was easier now to just remember their new names.
“I was not barking!” LBC fumed, turning brown for a heartbeat as she moved from fearful green to angry red.
Reaper laughed a little. “It's okay, I like the way you bark Miss Claw. You're a good leader too.”
They made their way further downhill towards the bridge south to Mere Island. With the same groups, they raided what looked like a factory. The building had blue unnatural lights in it, which made the shade workers with wrenches seem creepier. The black forms did not emote or speak, just moved efficient purpose, instantly shifting from idle to running, the only sound they made was their boots on ground, no smell, and no reaction to pain until they collapsed into a puddle in death. Curtis was still huffing but did manage to kill a shade that broke off after him.
“Hey Corvayne good call on just holding it out, the guy impaled himself on it.”
“Yeah, just be careful if you are facing something smart, use corners to watch your back if they are trying to flank.”
“I ain't ever going to fight two people bud! I just wanted to lose a few years and get in shape like people were saying. Two people come at me, I'm running.”
Corvayne nodded. “Better to do that and live then learn you're not as good at fighting as your enemies while you die.”
All the groups found tools of blue metal, with Corvayne calling them to keep and or trade anything not found in chests. He personally tried to keep his eyes open for materials, knowing they could be bartered for groceries or given to Mosh. He also wanted to take some to the Ko-Ban Market and try to barter parts to rebuild the hover-bike. Curtis had given him an idea for his best find, which was to take the lights from the ceiling. Despite looking like long bulbs they were actually little rods that while not directed could provide excellent illumination for camping. He was able to get at about twenty rods. Hopefully the Tower didn't mind too much if they took some of the props.
Horton had gathered some credits and tools, including a bunch of blue metal screws and a power drill with a red hot bit. The man had been very careful, letting others open doors and check rooms. Given his staff wouldn't survive too many swings as-is, perhaps a wise decision. Every so often he'd repeat his staff movements, and then end his little dance with a thrust, then shrug and go back to collecting papers.
They regrouped and moved to a large ranch style house by the bridge that was on a fairly defensible hill. The orange paint and fuzzy earth toned furniture really reminded him of the sixth floor in the first dungeon. He had the group clear the house, then had Mosh come with him to see if they could restart the circuit breakers and hook up the hot water. Mosh and June had everything set in five minutes. The announcement that they'd have hot showers that night was met with cheers.
Outside, the blue sky was changing color, deepening to a red shade as it got dark. Corvayne cooked with Ayame and gently turned down an offer to sleep in the same room, and they had potato cakes with marinated chicken and some lettuce, which wasn't as good as eating monsters but even if shades left bodies Corvayne wasn't about to try it.
As the group finished eating he went outside and laid down glow rods around the home and pushed some of the couches against the windows and doors. With the lights on the driveway and outside the windows, he was sure anyone on watch would have plenty of time to spot any enemies. On top of that, the renamed trio was sleeping on couches out in the large living room. He was sort of glad they had the ambush incident, as there was always a struggle to get people to recognize their watches as important.
Horton was clinking his glass of boiled water when he came back. “I wanted to tell you what I was looking at today.”
Ears pointed at herself. “My leather clad ass?”
“I meant the subject I became interested in, being this floor, but I don't think there's anything wrong with looking when your pants are extremely tight.” He cleared his throat and kept going before Ears could sputter a response. “Anyway, this map and the papers are all written in clear Collective Common. They are dated in a similar pattern to our own date system with most of them published within the last ten to twenty years per copy-write dates on the published objects, and incidental dates fall pretty within normal for- Um is there a problem?”
Corvayne looked at everyone glaring at Horton and over where Curtis and Ayame had went off to take their showers. “I think you should lead with your thesis, then circle back to evidence and interesting points.”
Horton nodded. “Ah. I should have taken a page from Wick. I always liked how well she did this thing. Okay, this is not Cascadia. Or it is a different Cascadia. The planet is Cascadia, per text, but this place has a different name: Cascade Landing. That's important, but I want to just support this from evidence, as I think there's internal integrity to these documents. An expense report that includes dining at a cafe I saw before we reached the factory. This makes me suspect this is a bubble of alternate time...”
He looked around again. “As I was saying, the name Cascade Landing is only found in really old charter documents... from off world and only off world. You don't see anything, even from older buildings in the Cascadia History museum, that use that name.”
Reaper whistled. “Okay, that's pretty good UFO guy. I mean, I assume you knew about this weird one-off name for the place before we came in?”
Horton smiled. “Right! That's why when I saw this place I was looking for papers, because the Cascade Landing thing is a mystery that I wanted to one day spring on Wick! It's a weird hiccup in historical documents that ONLY is seen off world, but is extremely consistent in any documents from a three year span a hundred and forty or so years back. So yes, I wanted to brag a little about there being evidence that the towers are either pulling from or bleeding out slightly into our reality.”
Mosh had been listening while resting his head on June's lap. “Well, yeah. It means we're in a time-stub here. Happens all the time, somebody makes a really tiny binary choice and history responds with dead branches. There was a big old spaceship city that had thousands of really, really nasty time lines that they had to purge so people wouldn't fall into em.”
The goblin tapped his chin. “Though, I've never heard of anything bleeding through into the real world across planet lines. So maybe I'm wrong... That might be a historical project Mr. Horton. You could try to figure out where the split is!”
“I'd organize a trip with the historical society. They'd pay good money to see this.”
Ayame looked pale. “So all these houses and roads... Do you think people lived here then? Where did they go?”
Corvayne shook his head. “. Every thing I learn about The Tower or Cascadia just makes me feel like I'm splashing around for answers but every step I take just muddies the water.”
Horton just snorted, and replied as he walked out of the room, “Yeah, that's life dude.”