Corvayne was freaking out. He was sure everyone knew he was too, because otherwise Wick would not have slipped him one of her pills, and certainly Lady Blood Claw would have complained more if he WASN'T freaking out about moving him around like a sack of potatoes, and how could anyone blame him, fifty thousand years. FIFTY THOUSAND YEARS. He had almost calmed down until Nyxion had brought him a screen that matched his old Watcher one at the end of the row, and he found huge folders full of both cryptic text logs and automated logs after the place was abandoned in 37,000 something. Fifty thousand years of a few robots keeping things tidy. He could see them now starting to repair the place and swimming after whale parts and shards of containers. Fifty thousand years since he walked past Spears.

What had happened? He had walked out of the village, blinked, and woke up in Cascadia. Fifty thousand years. He was twenty something. What happened!?! Was there anything left of The Watchers? Was it just him and Spears? Did they have to restart the whole thing?

Lady Blood Claw had pulled him to the side of the the rows of canisters, near the bridge back to the passage out. She set him down far gentler than she had carried him. “Corvayne, It's going to be okay.”

He looked up at her. She was gray with hints of red-orange dots rippling across her skin. She continued. “I've been where you are. When I woke up I was alone, I had to learn the language, and they told me the ruins they found me in marked me as old. Perhaps over a thousand years old. I'm the only non human.”

It didn't help him much. The disconnect was too much. He hated his home, so he didn't understand why he felt he was trapped and lost and it felt like he wasn't taking full breaths. He expected Lady Blood Claw to slap him or shake him, fitting of the persona she usually had, but she just sat across from him for a while before she eventually stood.

“It will hurt, but you've already started putting roots down... I should ask Hari to help you here. Wick as well.”

Corvayne reached out and took her hand. “I want you...” He had to huff a little bit, his head cloudy, before he continued. “I want you to tell me about it. Please.”

He looked up at Lady Blood Claw and saw she was glowing red with flickers of orange, her expression wavering between incredulous, angry, and mouth-open shocked and Corvayne knew something was wrong with him because he started looking at her jumpsuit and curves. He was surprised when she turned gray with a sigh then sat by him.

“Okay, back when I was first got pulled out, Nyxion's father gave me to him. I guess to try to get me to speak the language. Nyx made a pass at me, once, and I broke his arm. We've become friends since then, but at the start part of my problem was I was angry at being abandoned. I knew The Magus was fickle, and that people around him died, and by all means I was hoping that it meant I was rid of him, but he took my name, everything, to try to mold me into something and I wanted to know why I had failed. I don't want you to pity me Corvayne, but I had nothing but my wounded pride, and there I was being treated as a curious pet by a clearly arrogant man. A man who looked like he expected everyone to say yes. Which is why the first word I learned was 'No'. I figure I'd leave him as I got better at navigating the world, but then the thing with his sister and father happened, and suddenly he was cast off too, and I started to get that he was playing a part, and he was just as lost and floundering at it as I was.”

She sighed. “I guess what I'm trying to say is you'll be okay. You have Wick and Hari and now Spears. I'm on the same road as you too, looking for the past. So, say to yourself one of those stupid spear lines you told Gary, and remember that when you stop stabbing forward you have friends and lovers all propping you up.”

She put an arm around his shoulder and shook him a bit, pushing herself to sound stern. “Besides I will be pissed if my training partner mopes so much we both get weak!”

The thought made him jump to his feet. “Spears is probably feeling the same.” He stopped and turned to Lady Blood Claw. “Thank you Lady... if it weren't for Grunt I'd say you'd be my best friend.”

She turned blue with embarrassment, hints of happy pink rippling across her. “Shut up!”

He smiled at her, then turned and walked back down the row and across the bridge, stepping over little disc shaped bots cleaning up the damage.

Back with the group, he saw that Hari had her arms around Spears who had also fallen into shock. His watery patrol partner was larger in her humanoid form than Hari was, which made it look like rather than sitting in her lap Hari was getting her face pushed into Spear's chest. The elf was patting her back. “It's okay. Until you find your way home, you can live with us.”

He knew Hari was a good person, but it melted his heart to see the elf reach out and help a stranger... then he noticed her turn and give Nyxion an evil smile, and that Nyxion was clutching his hands, muttering.

“That should be ME damnit.”

Corvayne went and found Wick, who was checking the contents of tubes.

“Sorry, I had a little moment. My head still feels a little weird...”

“I'll say. I gave you a double dose of my usual shit.”

He blinked. “I feel mostly normal though.”

Wick looked him up and down. “It's a downer, and you're usually really calm. We'll do some mending to really fix you when we leave. Also... you've been doing this for me non-stop since we met. In fact, I wanna say I'm sorry. I let Lady Blood Claw handle most of it. I'm not a comforting person.”

He turned around. “Before I hadn't pegged her as one either... maybe she felt like a big sister or a mom to the kids she trained before?” He was trying to avoid thinking about his own situation.

Wick stopped looking at the screen on a tube and walked next to him, then leaned on the railing and put her head on his shoulder. “Hey goofball. You're not alone anymore. You need to toughen up, be the guy who marched me through a dungeon, but this time for Spears. When you left, you were ready to go. She's probably acting timid because she's totally cut off from everyone, and you've effectively dumped her by telling her you've never seen her as a partner.”

Corvayne put his arm around Wick, then removed it after she pinched his hand. “Sorry.” He tried patting her head and that worked. “If I had known what she felt, I'd be a different person. I would have tried to get back to her.”

“That's fine. I'm glad you've stuck around... For this next part though, we're going to work on YOU! Even if you and spears are the last two Watchers, I expect you to verify it all! I'll be right behind you prodding you in the right direction, because otherwise how the heck else can you expect to marry me?”

He couldn't help it and hugged her, which had her elbow him. “Off idiot! I just nearly got eaten, you think I want you to touch me?”

Corvayne couldn't help but think, even with a little strawberry jam still staining her hair, she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. “I love you Wick.”

She shoved a hand in his face. “I love you too, so fuck off and let me finish looking at this stuff!”

After an hour Wick had enough, having pulled out three metal containers from three other jars. “We'll have Hari see if anything in these are worth it. I left everything that recommended keeping it in containment or a ring that gave you incredible stats but lethal doses of radiation if you wore it for an hour.”

“I could probably...”

Wick hit his shoulder. “It was written BY a Watcher. That's actually something I want to study, how you and they can write things I understand.”

“Oh. I bet the entire facility also functions like the Bracer does. You probably won't be able to read anything once we get outside.”

Wick laughed. “Smart! Maybe they did... do you think your engineering master, Spaces-Torn, had something to do with this place?”

Corvayne thought about it. “I don't know what powers he had, but I'd suspect the robots would have his hand in it. He stressed making things that lasted nearly forever. You know... you made me feel better thinking about it...”

He reached into his ring and pulled out his water purifier. It was the same as when he got it before his first patrol. He flipped it over to read the name on the bottom. Corvayne. It was the same one, for fifty thousand years. Yet... his bags and canteen had changed.

“Spaces was thinking of the long game. This place too... if someone was only was going to live seventy years, they wouldn't have made this to be found intact eons later. The notes! They say 70,000 years after the place was built someone was going to come back and check em out.”

She walked back with him and they went to the screen Nyxion had found. The map of Cascadia they pulled up obviously didn't fit with the current area, but there was a path marked. One went deep into the desert, the other went to a location near the Cascadian National forest, and one lead up the hills to end where he had woken up.

He pointed to the dot where the road ended. “That's where I woke up both times.”

Wick smiled. “Well, lets go check it out!”

They didn't end up finding the one thing Corvayne actually wanted to find in there (aside from Spears herself, of course!) which was another spear like his, or a third cloak. He stored the things they wanted to take, including two of the jars. Spears requested they take some slime with them or a sedative.

“My curse keeps me awake, so that or I drink until I pass out.”

They found a storage unit that had a water containers that worked for holding jelly, and loaded up on the substance. Spears needed some, Wick wanted some, and Corvayne wanted some as well, as hurling it at an enemy The Magus had cursed might be as devastating as being thrown into the substance was.

Corvayne had mostly recovered by the time he pulled himself up the ladder then turned and helped Spears out, her warm hand not slimy despite feeling wet. She gasped and laughed as he took her into pouring rain.

“Oh wow! I haven't been rained on in years!” Spears opened her mouth and for a moment Corvayne could see water flowing inside her, which for some reason made him feel self conscious about holding her hand.

After she spun a few times, Spears also realized that it was kind of chilly and made for the boat. Lady Blood Claw was the last up and out and closed the hatch behind her. Wick motioned with her head at the ruins overlooking the hidden facility. “I want to know who owns this spot... I'll do that while you check out the portal.”

Corvayne nodded. “I'll also find somewhere for Spears to stay.”

Wick shrugged. “Just make sure Hari is on board, and I guess Nyxion was acting weird around Spears? Lady Blood Claw was trying to ask me about it but I don't get what she sees.”

Corvayne wasn't sure either what was going on so he got on the boat, handed Spears one of his warm rain coats, then they took off through the drizzle back south. As the pulled out into open water Corvayne had that rolling feeling start up. The sloshing on top of the boat bumping up and down made him feel like he was going to throw up, the feeling stopping when he felt a sharp pain and found another shard of metal in his side. Holding his cloak up, he pulled it out and hissed.

Nyxion laughed. “See, if you were clear like this lovely lady, you'd have found it earlier!”

He winced as he pressed a finger against his wound until it stopped bleeding. Odd he hadn't felt it climbing the ladder. With the blood covering it, the shard looked black, like obsidian. He took it and tossed it overboard. He was glad the fish responsible for it was dead.

They pulled into the Ko-Ban dock as dusk was falling and Spears seemed delighted by seeing a large city with lights and, interestingly enough, was tickled pink by the trains. Wick puffed up a little bit as she gestured to the train station visible above a building by the dock. “Why, we're going to ride that orange line home!”

Spears looked at them. “Home... Would you mind if I stayed with Corvayne while I find a place in your tribe?”

Wick nodded. “Sure, we got a house! You know, we could take the purple back to our pad... I haven't even slept in it yet.”

Corvayne thought that sounded nice, but worried that he'd have a big ball of goo between him and Wick. Worth the risk. “Go orange, I parked my Hoverbike at Mister I's. Besides I want a mending to ensure I have no more spikes in me.”

Hari cheered. “Sleepover!”

LBC took her bag off the boat and finished making sure they had gotten everything. Corvayne caught her mumbling, “...Mosh make it bigger.” but he wasn't sure what it was about so he just waited for her to finish then walked with her to join the others and head to the stairs up to the elevated tracks.

Nyxion nudged him, mercifully missing the spot with the wound. “I'd like to see your place Corvayne.”

Lady Blood Claw turned orange. “Didn't you call it a hovel the first time you saw it?”

“Please LBC. I would have said something elegant like 'prefab peasant cage'.” Nyxion smiled. “I mean, shouldn't you ask our most social member to help her get used to society?”

Hari clapped her hands. “Good idea Nyx!” Her phone appeared in her hand a moment later.

Nyxion nodded and smiled then thought about it and looked at her suspiciously, then his eyes widened. “Don't you dare!”

She had an evil grin, locking her eyes on his while she walked backwards. “Hello, Seru? Can you help me with a project?”

Spears herself ignored them to plaster herself to a train-car window, crystal eyes shifting colors and for a moment catching the lights of the cities like stars. Some nameless emotion hit Corvayne like a hammer. It was... a desire to see the girl with stars again? Worry that it was Spears? Was this a threat to his feelings for Wick? His head spun a moment as he sat. He snuck a glance at Spears-Like-Water again and she was his partner, shaped like water, yes, but it was the girl who stabbed nail-creepers out on the dunes with him.

He relaxed as Wick and Hari took a seats next to him, Hari sneaking in a kiss before going back to her phone, and Wick giving him a gentle headbutt to his shoulder. He'd worry about mysterious girls and visions later. Right now, life was good, aside from them likely getting dragged into a shopping spree.

Corvayne guessed that was what Lady Blood Claw was laughing about, and probably the same reason that Nyxion looked so defeated as the train doors closed.