Corvayne let Lady Blood Claw help him pick out black shards that had lodged themselves in his arm and leg as he faced Spears-Like-Water, who was currently a large ball of water with a little red core resting on the dark steel grate. Parts of the monster whale were drifting by in the glowing jam, black islands in the the reddish pink color. Spears stood out as the only blue spot because everyone else was caked with jam.

Corvayne had propped himself up against an empty jar stand-machine and now looked at the slime who had calmed down. “Okay. Spears, I need to talk to you. About The Watchers.”

A quiver and Spears folded the top of herself a little like a nod. “Yes.... what's happening? Is the war still going?”

“War? Wait, I want to start with... why did The Watchers all hate me?”

She stopped. “I didn't hate you! I tried really hard to get through to you! I tried to be your patrol partner every time I could!”

“I thought they were assigned.”

“No? I'm sure me and other girls told you that you could ask the head of security... I don't remember you picking people. I remember people thought you were weird, so maybe other people didn't like you, but most people knew you were just... uh... your own person. I tried to give you space, but it was hard for me to do that... sometimes.”

Corvayne folded his arms. “You, of all people, called me a slime ball and told me to never touch you.”

Two ovals of red water appeared on Spears. “Wh-wh-what!? No! I never said that!”

“We were on patrol, and I had found a bone large enough to sit on, and when I put it down by the fire, that's what you said.”

“I remember that patrol! You got a place to sit, and I said 'Are you cold? We could sit together.' and you said 'Fine, I'll sit alone.'”

“What about the last time we spoke? On the tower you stated you had hoped you wouldn't find my sorry... butt.” Corvayne folded his arms, which hurt, but sometimes pain was worth showing how you felt.

Spears hopped up and down a little. “No way, I said I found you because you always went to spots with great views! Didn't I sit next to you?”

“What about when I was Exiled?”

“Exiled? I remember you looked oddly happy before you vanished. You thanked me and honestly I should have been more worried, but I was so happy to hear it I didn't think how odd it was...”

Wick moved to sit so she could speak to both of them. “One or both of your memories have been fricked beyond recognition.” She coughed. “Fucked! Fucked up. Gah”

“You're sounding more like yourself again.” Corvayne noted.

“What did I sound like?” Wick asked.

“Princess!” Hari responded, hugging Wick.

Spears voice sounded hesitant as she said, “I think it might be my memories are broken. I can't remember details about the past, or who else liked Corvayne, or who disliked him. Aside from One-Last-Note who was rude to everyone. The search and the war... It's blurry to me. But! I remember when I was alone with Corvayne. On patrol. When he was hurt bad and the times he saved me, too.”

Wick managed to get herself pulled out of Hari's grasp. “Listen, he remembers you being tall, tanned, and solid.”

Spears quivered. “Part of the Magus's containment was The Watcher's Pact, which included 'Normality'. I was still a trainee Watcher, but near the village it altered reality. Something like, we traded most of our natural strength to lock The Magus down better.”

Corvayne looked around. “You said something about searching for me, but how did you get down here? I left The Watchers a month ago.” Corvayne said, deciding he'd go with linear Cascadia time rather than the time compression dungeons caused.

“A month? That can't be... I was part of The Watchers sent to look for you. Right as the war started, I was out for two years and came back to find The Watchers split down the middle.”

Corvayne paused. “It seems my guess that I had been walking for a while in the desert was correct... there was something like a slide show from walking through the deep wastes.” So he had lost a few YEARS on the walk? He found himself getting a little angry. He had skipped right to his thirties!

Spears rolled forward a little. “I don't see how it's possible you got there without us finding you... I mean, I'm sure you of all people could make it Corvayne, but we have so many patrols and only one group spotted you on the road the night you left, then you were just... gone.” The slime girls voice sounded very hesitant.

Lady Blood Claw tapped Nyxion. “Let's see if there's anything else here we can take.” She caught Corvayne's gaze and nodded.

Wick looked between them. “Corvayne, if you...”

“You can all hear whatever she's going to say, if you want.” He spoke even as a little tinge of worry started to crawl it's way up his back.

Spears did her little slime nod as Nyxion and Lady Blood Claw sat. “Corvayne, a long, long time has passed since you left. For sure at least five years if you just went off what I am sure passed, as I spent two years looking for you, and two long years of fighting while watching the curses split us in half. While I was gone The Magus escaped and somehow destroyed the pact we had. Curses turned friends into enemies, drove Watchers mad... he divided our forces, broke us in two, maybe even more pieces. I was captured by the renegades and put in stasis before I got placed in that tube. When I woke again, they said that... they told me... a long time passed.”

It was quiet for a moment. Wick poked the slime. “How long?”

“Two thousand seasons.”

Nyxion swooped in. “When we fought you before, you looked pretty good for two thousand!”

Lady Blood Claw added. “As does Corvayne, since he stated you grew up together.”

Wick held a hand up. “You said you were in stasis, so they could have been lying to you.”

“They were Watchers, but ones I'd never seen before with weird names.” Spears grew a pseudopod to scratch her own head.

Nyxion butted in. “No offense to your peers, but aside from your lovely appellation, I'd say all the Watcher names are weird.”

Spears laughed at that. “Corvayne, your friend cracks me up!”

Corvayne saw Nyxion beaming. Lady Blood Claw tapped the ground. “I have a question. It seems that you and Corvayne both speak perfect Collective. How is that?”

Spears hopped and twisted a few times, which Corvayne could tell was her spinning to face Lady blood Claw, though given she had no features he wondered WHY she bothered to do that. “The 'non-native' watchers have bracers. They work as our communicators, storage, and translators.”

“So Corvayne could have just called home?” Wick looked at him. “You doofus! I could have skipped the part where I was fish food.”

Spears squeaked a little. “He cannot, he doesn't have one. Corvayne was the cut-off point.”

Wick was sharp, pressing her. “You said it was non-natives.” Not to mention he understood everyone fine.

“I was very young and I don't remember much, but the older Watchers told us that we had been somewhere else before, and that they had been displaced from the people they knew. I mean, it's why I was raised by Waves-Within and Chases-Up-Trees. I don't remember the before time or more than impressions of before the change, I do know that Waves is my father in every way that counts, the same that Chases is my mom.” She ended the statement sounding a little more like her old self, as if asking for anyone to argue otherwise.

Corvayne paused. “If she and Waves were together, I mean, didn't she hit on my dad all the time?”

“Well, as a matter of course I encouraged it, as the result would be me becoming your sister.” The smile wobbled happily, then once again two pink ovals appeared on it. “They were friends who raised me together.”

Wick looked over. “So The Watchers are... refugees? From something?”

Spears quivered. The time spent with Grunt made Corvayne think this was a slime shrug, but for all he knew she had just burped. “I don't know. My memory is terrible. I do know we were Watchers as in 'watch over The Magus's prison', and I was told we had been a large part of why he had been imprisoned.”

Lady Blood Claw perked up at the reminder that The Magus was involved. “Miss Spears, you said he got loose. Do you know of Infinitus? Or his apprentices?”

“I knew during the period I was awake after being in statis that he had help, and I know The Watchers operated under the assumption he had allies, but as far as I know his escape had been on his own.”

Nyxion looked around and cleared his throat, saying “In the spirit of communicating, would it be possible to resume your human form?” To which Lady Blood Claw elbowed him.

“I could. The suppressive fluid is mostly worn off but... oh I don't have clothes!”

Corvayne pulled out one of his spare sets. “I have some but-”

“Oh those will do fine! If you would, hand them over. Please.” She extended psudopods towards him and when he gave her the clothes they snatched them back to the main body which grew and flexed until there was a watery Spears-Like-Water sitting in his clothes. He noticed she looked pleased with herself.

“Thank you, do I look okay?”

Corvayne nodded. “But uh, let's go back to you, and by extension me, being two thousand years old.”

“Well, the place I was imprisoned wasn't here. It was a prison-like facility where there were long dusty plains around it. I saw a city of silver too. I don't know what side of the battle it was... my memory hasn't been working right since I got cursed. I spent a lot of time in a cell built to keep me from just flowing out. I remember waking up and going to sleep a lot, then them putting me back into a stasis tube, either because the facility was about to be attacked or to try to help with the curse I have, then I remember fighting lots of people in the arena, sometimes losing but mostly winning, of course, then you arrived and beat me soundly, and I realized I was dreaming...”

Wick gave her a thumbs up. “It's okay, I think it tracks. Though, if you don't know the way to The Watchers we're going to have to leave through the Towers...”

Spears stood up. “I intend to bring Corvayne back home. And go home myself. To that end, let's look around here. There has to be something that would point the way back...”

Corvayne nodded. “... Actually, I wanted to see if the place had a date that let us know what time it was compared to what was on the jars.”

Lady Blood Claw was already heading down the stairs to grab a half-open container out of the muck. It seemed they were not as heavy as he supposed, or she was strong enough to drag it up the stairs. Even coated with jam, the screen worked and popped a pleasing blue display up.

Spears-Like-Water

Subject: Alive. Chemically induced sleep.

Internment date: 1967.12 (Recovered 1966.10)

Internment CI ~99.9%

MANUAL RELEASE DATE AUTO ADDED: 53045.09

ESTIMATED CI 18% (based on 50% at 33,472.12)

Handling: Dragoon 29/Spear Artist 5. Hydrogen-Oxygen hybrid lifeform, use extremely heavy sedatives, avoid re-equipping. Apply small amounts of suppressive jam to aid in normal sleep.

Notes: Suffering two curses at least, one that makes her extremely prone to wake up after falling asleep (May not be the usual insomnia, She is patient 0 for this curse). Other is scrambled Friend/Foe. To whoever takes over site: Subject has connection or bond with BIG DELTA. May be the SEW. Estimated time for curse to completely degrade: 64,241 +/- 50 years due to odd occasional essence infusion.

To do: Investigate essence additions.

Recheck stasis integrity: Subject was put to sleep before re-storage, but seems to be dreaming and will move and twitch despite stasis fluid.

Spears grabbed the container, watery hands trembling. “This can't be!”

Corvayne looked at her. “Spears, please tell me the large numbers are days. Those dates are in days and hours, right?”

She turned and looked at Corvayne, her opalescent watery eyes conveying terror. She tapped the release date.

(Subject was in Stasis for 51078 Years.)