Corvayne watched Brines pace and rant about buying cotton swabs or stocking up on dog food for a good five minutes. He felt bad for Grunt, having spent a lot of time in the previous week keeping Seru at arms length. It was annoying to have someone jumping at you like an eager puppy. Eventually Grunt got tired of trying to follow what Brines was raving about and signed a sort of spinning hand then gestured at Mr. Brines: What's this all about now?

The athletic man was frantic. “It's the end of everything, the system is waking up, the world is going to fall into chaos, everyone is gaining powers! We gotta hurry, or we'll fall behind!”

Grunt rolled his eyes, then held his hand up, and with a thought it turned to stone then back after he shook it. He shrugged, then went over and grabbed himself a snack from a little wicker bowl on the break room counter. He offered his boss one too, and Brines took it and pocketed it. “Good idea, we need to have food for when things go haywire.”

Grunt looked over at Corvayne, pleadingly. Corvayne stood up. Of course Bro.

“Mister Brines? Sorry, but Grunt is currently busy with our group project and keeping Wick alive.”

“Oh... well that's sad to hear. I was hoping he'd be on my... hey you're the kidnapper guy! You're pretty strong too... wait, are you guys already a party?”

“We have a loose fellowship thing going on, but yes. I'd advise not involving yourself, as we might all be dead in a week.” Corvayne didn't add that it might not stick, as he already had two enthusiastic amateur adventurers lurking about Old Town.

“Okay, well if you need help let me know. You know me Grunt, I'm reliable. A local fixture!” Brines pivoted to face Nepthia.

She turned and politely bowed. “I'm afraid I cannot go on free ranging adventurers, as I have responsibilities to Miss Dawn.”

Brines deflated a little. Corvayne felt a little bad, but then shrugged. “How about some training, if you don't mind us using the warehouse for space?”

A little later, Lady Blood Claw was standing on a mat they had ferried over via storage ring, her skin a very light gray that suggested she was uncomfortable. He had gone to get Lady Blood Claw, but had somehow picked up Gary and Seru and Nyxion as well, the noble sitting on a crate half watching while making calls on a burner phone while using his wrist computer to get the numbers he needed. The security guards were watching too.

Lady was probably uncomfortable because she hadn't had spent something like twelve years having to pick and choose when she could walk around not covered from head to toe in concealing gear. Walking down the street, they found that Brines was not to be the last person trying to get Grunt to join their party. Or at least to party, a few of the propositions were women of ill repute. It was interesting that at least one of those offers resulted the entrepreneurial woman being arm-barred by her peer at the corner. He suspected it had to do with dating Dawn as he heard the other woman hissing 'carrot peeler' and the initial whore going pale. Never a dull moment in Old Town.

He snapped his focus back to the present, practicing with weapons and a little bit of instruction. He had gotten some wood staves for spear training and had passed them out to the participants.

What he had assumed would be chaos turned out to be a pretty nice time where he'd give little directions and do a spar with Lady Blood Claw, hand out some exercises, do another spar while, then they'd both take a break to watch Seru spar with Gary. Seru had gotten enough extra experience that she could overcome the inherent problem with fighting with her fists against Gary who was using a practice spear. Brines was mostly doing forms, and Corvayne found himself having a bit of fun actually teaching someone who was enthusiastic to learn to fight.

After an hour Gary was reaching his limits for sparring, so he called them to do laps around the warehouse, at whatever pace they felt they could jog at. Brines pulled Corvayne aside, looking at Gary with open concern.

“Look, I'm not sure the big guy should be doing this... if he has a heart attack on the grounds not even a system apocalypse is as scary as liability lawsuits.”

“He spent a week killing monsters, he's theoretically above a normal human's abilities.” Corvayne said. It wasn't the case, but maybe in a few weeks he'd reach that point if he kept training his coordination.

Brines looked confused. “Really?”

Corvayne sighed. “That big polearm he is lugging around everywhere is a literal magical weapon.”

“Do you think he'll sell it?” Brines asked. Corvayne turned to study the man. A bunch of little dominos in his mind started falling over.

Corvanye thankfully had a lot of practice in controlling his voice. “No, but if you want to buy magic gear... we can do something about THAT.”

An hour later at Wick's place, Corvayne had accomplished one of his outstanding goals, having used some of their hard earned spare knick-knacks to purchase a house with Wick. Granted, it was really more about owning the dungeon entrance rather then a house for the sake of a house, and he'd need to build himself a car or hover bike since that section of suburbs was not designed for walking.

The trade was a fire breathing knife, leaving him with two leftovers, three ingots of Cascadian steel, and two grab bag items that he had stowed from the slime dungeon but had neglected to inspect. One was a shirt that oozed a red fluid and was supernaturally tough. While the stuff quickly evaporated, it could be wrung into someone's mouth and was essentially a low grade healing potion. The other was a scepter that produced smoke that made anyone inhaling it move much faster, but tired them out quickly when the effect ended. He didn't feel that bad about trading either object, as the boots did what the scepter did with no drawbacks and the shirt seemed like it was a very useful item for someone fighting weak enemies like the goblins but not the kind of thing that would help him deal with the kinds of monsters that kept nearly killing him. Especially not Argyle.

That actually brought him to things he had really, really wanted to try out and the reason he had been willing to experiment with the shirt and scepter before selling them. They had 3 scrolls of identify and one scroll of uncurse object from the chest right before Argyle had attacked.

“Okay Corvayne I want you to try reading the scroll while targeting yourself.” Wick had cleared space in her spare room, where Corvayne slept if she didn't want him in the main room.

Corvayne thought about it. “I'll try it, I don't think it will work but I'll try. First, we should test a bunch of items before we spend the scroll in case they are cursed. There's one thing I want to use an identify scroll on since I don't think it's the kind of item anyone would be willing to test.”

Wick folded her arms. “What item?”

Corvayne pulled out the white dress he had found with Seru in a garage. Wick smiled. “Oh that's pretty... wait what's that look you have? Knock it off, I can appreciate clothes without wanting to wear them.”

Corvayne took two fingers and lifted the hem of the dress to show her the inside, which had pink and purple tentacles and villi and finger-like knobs all writhing and searching for something, glistening with fluid.

Wick looked a little ill. “I don't care if that thing can make me orgasm hard enough to reach orbit, nothing could make me wear that.”

Corvayne nodded and he tried not to think about the mechanics of her comment. “I think it would be very... distracting, but if it's not cursed-”

Wick held her hand out at it. “The thing is definitely cursed Corvayne!”

He very patiently continued on to the point. “If it's not, this is the kind of thing that would sell to a certain type of person for a lot of money...”

Wick perked up. “Oh yes! You're right, an extreme pervert would LOVE this.”

“... Or we let Hari or maybe LBC wear it if it has significant combat abilities.” Corvayne tried to keep his mind out of the gutter with those choices. Though, he would not actually offer it to Lady Blood Claw nor would he want to be in the room when she saw it, as for some reason he felt it would feel wrong to offer that to a friend.

His mind went to Grunt trying to wear the dress and he tried not to laugh at that thought as he took one of their scrolls, unfurled it, and read the word there.

It created a little lasso that his mind could attach to things around the room, the faint gold lines solidifying into a sort of yellow highlight of the dress in question once he designated the dress as his target. It sensed that he agreed with what object he wanted and the glow brightened then the scroll folded itself up with a snap and disappeared with a little puff of dust.

The results drifted into Corvayne's head, reminding him a little of the blue sheet Gygax gave him.

Living Dress

Apex Class, nearing Artifact

Living gear

Growth item

Semi-aware

Cloth Armor

+20 Base HP

+10% total hp

+1.5/Sec HP Regeneration

Symbiotic 300/10: This item has 300 HP and bonds to a main 'user'. It drains a little of it's host's life when damaged (up to 10 health a second) but can also restore some of it's wearer's health when they are in danger. If the item's health reaches 0, it will need to have a weaver repair it with living thread. It has a singular self, so while it appears to be a colony this item is actually a sort of hive mind. It is fairly intelligent.

Naughty: This item has adult functions, responding to it's bonded user's will. Please use magical items responsibly.

Semi-aware: The dress is aware of who it's bonded to and reacts to their whims. It can understand intent towards it.

Growth: This item can absorb latent essence to improve it's statics and abilities and may add new ones if it is used and cared for well.

“Oh wow, it's actually a really good piece of equipment.”

Wick glared at him. “Oh really Corvayne? Care to try it on?”

Corvayne held it up. “I mean, for a weirdo.”

“I AM a weirdo and even I wouldn't put the damn thing on!” Wick pointed at the dress.

“Alright, I understand Wick. I'll find one in green.”

“Thank you much better.” She said smoothly as she sat back down. Corvayne folded up the dress and set it off to the side. He took out the green serpent skinned whip as a back up, then at motioned at Wick's bag of gear, hanging from a hook by the closed window curtains. “Can you get the sundial? I'd like to try the scroll out on it.”

As it turned out, whatever effect the scroll had it wasn't strong enough to latch onto the artifact, the magical gold lasso the scroll summoned just slipped off the object. The whip on the other hand was hard to focus on but with a little shepherding the pointer with his eyes the scroll eventually locked in on it.

Weeping Whip

Artifact weapon

Growth item

+4 to hit and damage

On using an ability while holding the handle of the whip, the whip gains a stack of 'Weeping Toxin' and increases the range of the whip by 10 feet. It may be empowered by a maximum of 3 charges. Charges wear off on connecting with a solid object and applying the poison.

Growth: This item can absorb latent essence to improve it's statics and abilities and may add new ones if it is used and cared for well.

Further powers unlocked via growth.

Reading about this prompted a quick trip down to the garage where they stood in the thin spot that Wick had cleared between the huge mine truck and a few other random machines that Mister I had been working on. Wick flicked the whip, then fired off [Disrupt] a few times, then tried again. The weapon didn't seem to get it's bonuses from casting, so Corvayne took it and flicked it, then activated gravity twice. Snapping the whip out it hissed and grew a serpent head that bit a hole clean through the thick metal garage. The whip recoiled and shrank and Corvayne watched as neon green goop slid down the wall, bubbling and hissing for a while before it faded to a dull brown sludge. Not trusting that it was still safe he got a bucket and shoveled it up, vowing to discard it in a tower at some point.

Wick was beaming. “Oh that's a good one! I think that's the sort of weapon you'd want when fighting the monk.”

Corvayne nodded. “I also think it's something that would eventually work well with Nyxion's style of fighting, given he uses his fear effect frequently.”

Returning to her room, he decided to reserve the last scroll and do some tests. First was the gold lizard bracer, which he tried on and felt his fingers change. It at first looked be like the sticky gloves Wick had, with him being able to control his fingers sticking to things. Then he tried shaking his hand and his fingers stretched out like they were made of rubber, growing to eight feet before they hit the walls and papers tacked up in Wick's room. With a twitch they retracted, netting him a handful of paper and a chess trophy.

“Oh those are going to Grunt, assuming they adjust magically in size.” Wick grinned. “He would appreciate an item that means he doesn't have to move to yank people to him.”

There was a wood club from the train station that felt very light yet was sturdy enough to dent metal. Maybe another Grunt weapon? There were socks from the floor six chest that seemed to dry and warm his feet, not bad, a pair of dress pants that seemed fairly normal but were tough, but a little uncomfortable to wear in a fight, then a skirt.

Wick was very suspicious of it. “If you go to the other room I'll try it on.”

Corvayne had a moment where he wanted to argue, but he would give Wick her space. “All right. Take a photo.”

He stepped through a drape into the kitchen. A few seconds later he heard an annoyed cry. “Corvayne! Help this thing is cursed!”

She was struggling with the skirt, trying to get it off as it started to snow on her bare legs. Corvayne relented and decided trying to cut her out was a bad idea, instead he picked up the scroll of uncurse object and handed it to her. She took it and unrolled it, stuttering through the words before there was a flash of silver and a line snaked out across the room, slowly saturating everything in Wick's space. The skirt turned a blue color then let Wick peel it off, falling to a soft pile of fabric that glistened with frost.

Wick grabbed Corvayne's hand he felt her shove it against her butt, which was freezing. Corvanye quickly took off his socks and helped Wick put them on. Seeing as she was shivering, he pulled the covers back for her to hop into bed. Seeing as she was still cold, he hopped in with her.

“If you think we are going to have sex r-r-r-right now while my pussy has frostburn, you have another thing coming.”

Corvayne looked at her oddly. “Why would I think that? You just got hurt.”

“Your pants fell off when you came to bed! You stinking liar!”

She snarled and wrestled with him, but because there was no punching it felt fake so he just let her flip over and 'pin' him.

Wick sat triumphant on him. “Ha! How's that?”

She needed not ask what he had thought about her pushing him down. “I am worried if you don't get warm you'll catch a cold.” He said, taking the tone of a very concerned friend.

Wick rolled her eyes then looked behind her. “Hey, these socks are getting me really hot... I mean am starting to thaw.”

“How far up can you pull them on your legs? To assess their value as armor, of course.”

Wick rolled her eyes. “Stupid asshole. You think your funny?” She rolled out of bed, grabbed the golden lizard bracer and slipped it on, then flicked her gecko tongue hands through the door. Corvayne heard the refrigerator open, ice cubes shuffling, then the door shut as she snapped her fingers back, clutching ice cubes. “Let's see how you like it!”

Corvayne judiciously pretended to suffer from Wick's attention, ice cubes and all.