If Jun wanted to go back to the floodforest, then there wouldn’t be any argument from me. We’d been planning on going back until we got sidetracked with Walkalong and everything with Endra, and I’d almost forgotten about it. But life would go on after we dealt with that, and the floodforest should be near the top of my list. Along with finding where the rest of humanity went, and dealing with the fucker who’d stolen my core.

“I’ll get this helmet made, then we can talk.” I said, and Jun agreed with a nod. She backed away a step, but kept watching as I opened my interface and removed my helmet. It cost exactly as much potential as the sword had, and the corrupted item that came out was very interesting.

//RIVERBLOOM-HELM(//CORRUPTED,Professional): Core mastery requirement: 27

Current item mastery: 1.

//GLITTERING-FLOW: While in motion, decreases damage taken by 20%. Further increased to 35% when in motion for a longer time.

//DEVASTATING-BREAK: While stationary, increases damage dealt by 20%. Further increased to 35% when stationary for a longer time.

While in flowing water, bright sunlight, or when critical, both //GF and //DB are always considered active.

Upgrades at mastery [1]/19/40/63/???

A true binary item, but one that actually had a trigger to activate both options at once. I’d had a few pieces of gear like this in my old life, but they’d never been able to double-dip like this one did. I pulled the helmet that now looked like it had been ravaged by a raging river out of my core and watched as the dents and cracks corrected themselves, but not fully. The cracks filled in with a dimly glowing blue-white mixture, and the dents stayed a slightly lighter colour than the rest of the helm. I raised an eyebrow at the massive crack on the visor; one that looked like a rock had hit a windshield, but shrugged and put on the helmet anyway. It wasn’t visible on the inside, just like I’d expected.

“If I was going on looks alone, I’d say you got the bad end of that deal.” Jun commented as she traced a finger along one of my helmet’s dim cracks. “But you made it seem like the bonuses are good enough, so who am I to comment on fashion?”

“That’s because you’re not the one wearing it.” I laughed, tapping the side of my head to get a dead spot out of the corner of my vision. The cracks might not be visible from the inside, but this helmet was not in great shape for some God-forsaken reason. “Oh, before I forget for the fifth time, I have something to give you. They need some repairs, and I didn’t make a full set, but wearing even one could give you a huge bonus.”

Jun crossed her arms and leaned forward while I called all the Slitherburn armor I had left from my inventory, letting it all tumble into a pile on the ground. She reached down and grabbed the blue and white bone helmet with curiosity, then opened her inventory. Her confusion only seemed to grow until she looked at me for help, but I wasn’t quite sure what she was having trouble with.

“Do they not work with your core?” I asked, bending down so I was crouching alongside her. “I thought it would give you, like, one stat point per percentage of stored heat.”

Jun held out the helmet for me to take. “Did you break this? Because the description makes it seem broken.”

Ah. Whoops. “Right, sorry. I forgot they all broke after I fought Endra.”

“Well, if you ever fix them, I’d be happy to take them. And… oh, wait, they actually don’t count against my weight limit for some reason. That’s strange, but convenient.” Jun said as she unsummoned the helmet before I could take it. “If you can convince Okeria to give us back the parts of the ‘eel’ he’s got stashed away, will that let you fix them?”

I wasn’t one-hundred percent sure that the answer to that question was yes. But if worse came to worst, I could just corrupt the armor Jun was wearing with the rest of the eel corpse. “Probably, but I’m not sure how much potential it would cost. If I have some left over after I corrupt the last piece I can try.”

Jun nodded. “Sounds good to me. But don’t push yourself to completely armor me in corrupted gear; I’m strong enough without it, and it’s your only advantage.”

I raised an eyebrow, but found myself agreeing with Jun’s statement. If it had come from anyone else’s mouth, I would’ve felt slighted. But Jun had said it with nothing but concern and cold, hard facts.

“Sometimes the truth hurts, I guess.” I laughed, tapping the side of my helmet in annoyance as yet another part of the visor dimmed. That was going to be annoying. “We’ll split the cores Keratily brings back after I up my hazard tolerance. Maybe you’ll get enough nodes to make another ‘star’.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Jun shrugged. “It’ll happen eventually.”

Keratily and Okeria returned a few minutes later with far fewer cores than I’d expected, and the look Keratily shot Okeria as she handed them off to me told me exactly where they’d gone. The man didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed when he placed one core in each of Jun’s hands, compared to the four Keratily had given me.

“You’d better hope this is enough, Perek.” Keratily said plainly. “If I have to wait another week for a trawler to the main nexus, I’ll be sure to make it about as pleasant for you as a trip down to the bottom of the abyss.”

“Oh, I’m hoping.” Okeria chuckled nervously. “Speaking of which, Sebastian, how’d ya like my portion of the ‘eel’? For absolutely no reason whatsoever.”

Had I ever called the creature an ‘eel’ around Okeria, or was this a desperation move to try and get on my good side? I deliberated for a moment before deciding I didn’t give a damn. “Sure, if you’re willing to throw in some more longswarm slyk crystals for ‘no reason whatsoever’. We could use some more extenders.”

Okeria made a strangled noise from deep in his throat, but nodded anyway. “No reason whatsoever.” He gurgled, walking over to the corner of the room and planting his head where the two walls met.

“Well, now that that’s done with, you need to hurry.” Keratily said with amusement in her voice at Okeria’s misery. “We have minutes until the trawler departs, and as much as I want to say we’ll be going with or without you, that is most definitely not the truth.”

“Wow, thanks for the boost of confidence.” Jun drawled as she walked over to me and placed her two cores on my pile. I tried to argue, but she shook her head and stepped back. “Better safe than sorry, and you never know how much it’ll cost you to corrupt your chestpiece. You can owe me later.”

I nodded thanks and focused on my interface, pressing the six cores deep into it while I watched the bonuses roll in. These gave me far less than the first one I’d taken in, thanks to the level differential, but as the sixth one disappeared, I had just enough nodes to convert to potential to corrupt another exact copy of my helmet.

//CORRUPTION COST: 930.

//AVAILABLE POTENTIAL: 790.

Not quite available yet. I waited for the rest of the empty nodes that my core was dribbling in, then activated the //CORRUPTION process. It was mostly the same as before, taking in the chestpiece and swirling it within the petal-whirlpool that was my core, and eventually spat out the brand new item that would hopefully give me that last point of hazard tolerance.

//RIVERBLOOM-PLATE(//CORRUPTED,Professional): Core mastery requirement: 27

Current item mastery: 1.

//GLITTERING-FLOW: While in motion, increases battery and integrity recovery rates by 20%. Further increased to 35% when in motion for a longer time.

//DEVASTATING-BREAK: While stationary, increases function and trinket cooldown rates by 20%. Further increased to 35% when stationary for a longer time.

While in flowing water, bright sunlight, or when critical, both //GF and //DB are always considered active.

Upgrades at mastery [1]/19/40/63/???

So the //GF and //DB activation functions were the same across the pieces, but had different effects based on the piece. If I had to guess, the gauntlets, arms, and boots would each give the same benefits as their twin armor pieces while the leg piece would be similar to the helm and plate. If I could combine these with a trinket or function that made it so my armor always considered itself to be critical, I would have one hell of a set on my hands. But then I would lose the ______bound ______armor synergy, which I wasn’t sure I was willing to let go just quite yet.

A quick glance at my stats told me that the chestpiece had indeed put me over the threshold for hazard tolerance. “I’m all good to go. With about 600 potential to spare, if needed.”

“Very good, very good. I would recommend staying in this room for the hours it will take to arrive at the first layover, but I know the feeling of wanting to experiment with new toys far too well.” Keratily said with a smile, walking over to the closed doors that would lead deeper into the trawler and pressing a hand to the one on the left. “I would ask that neither of you venture out without Okeria or myself to supervise, since the slyk onboard this particular trawler is something of a prickly fellow. Strangely vulnerable compared to the loneswarm Okeria took for himself, but far more deadly.”

Did Keratily think Jun and I were suicidal? Just seeing the stats of the loneswarm had put me off wanting to fight it for a good long while, and we hadn’t gotten that much stronger in the few days since. Maybe Jun and I could survive by ourselves now for a couple of minutes, but since I’d still had trouble destroying the slyk infester’s rocky home even after all the new gear, surviving was all we’d manage.

The trawler let out a horrible shriek, and with a lurch under my feet, we were on our way to whatever, and wherever, ‘the nexus’ was.