Corvayne met Wick at lunch. She was helping Varia cook, the two women laughing until Varia spotted Corvayne and flipped to a scowl before storming off with her pot to another table, giving him a nasty look before turning to Mosh and June.

“She really hates me, huh?” Corvayne frowned.

Wick waved her hand, still beaming at Corvayne. “I bet she's jealous. Mosh looks up to you. A lot. Anyway, where's Princess?”

Corvayne jerked his head back in the direction of his camp, even though it couldn't be seen past the giant crystal array. “Mister I is fixing her leg, then Spears is going to babysit her for a while.”

“Good, you remember what we're doing?” Wick leaned in.

“There was stuff in The Source you wanted to look at together. Murals?”

Wick nodded, then looked around. “Not to mention you're attracting too many women. Seru, Spears, and now Bell? I also heard Bearer-of-Burdens teasing Hari about you too. Do I need to worry about Kirae, as well? Maybe take your gold purse away?”

Corvayne gestured back towards the truck. “I understand you have doubts. Do you think we should delay our trip so I can vigoriously I establish how I feel about you?”

Wick gave him a side eye that made him suck in air as she lowered her voice and said, “No. I'll come to your camp tonight and make my claim known. Cmon, lets go check some ruins.”

As they walked away from camp, Corvayne felt wispy patches of yellow-white grass with his shadow limbs. They took a path across Varia's new stepping stones, around the crumbled dark stone walls that dotted the plain, and up and over little mounds that had formed where grit caught on a piece of the ruins that had rolled away. Corvayne used the time to just enjoy a sunny clear day. It was warm enough that a single layer felt comfortable. Wick was quiet, as she sometimes got when they were alone, but also kept looking back to smile at her. He stopped to watch her as well, watching her blue robes flutter as she walked, noticing how small her hands were, even caught a hint of her natural blonde near the base of her evergreen hair.

He followed where her eyes were trained too, tracing the outline of The Source and looked at all the spots where water spilled from the jumble of titanic building fragments that made it up, painting traces of the stone red against darker obsidian blacks and a few hints of lighter materials. Looking back, the truck was just visible as a glint in the sun near the large spiny formation he had made.

“We're going to 'The Nose'. No dungeon diving yet. I want to see if you can read the text.”

The Nose, as it was called, was a spot where a pool of cold water poured out of a suspended waterfall coming from an overhang. Looking at the pointed protrusion of fused stone jutting out from a steeper part of The Source... well it sort of looked like a nose. The image of crawling up into a sinus cavity didn't make him eager to scale the rope hanging from it, but Wick went first and so he followed.

He was impressed that she seemed stronger than before, pulling herself up without help. When Corvayne got to the top he was in a circular cavern lit both from the daylight below and blue lights further in. There was enough room on a stone path around the hole to move to stairs beside where the water was pouring out. Running his hand along the cold damp stone he felt no cracks, just smoothed shaped stone.

“Artificial, reinforced.” Wick said as she tapped a wall then finished climbing a stairway.

Corvayne followed her as a path lead into a dim blue passage. It resembled the Cascadia sewer a little, with water running between two raised walkways on the side. Wick lit her flashlight and waved it around.

“Any monsters?” Corvayne felt his eyes looking up and down.

“Just a few slimes and a few sky moles. About the size of a small dog, not aggressive unless you bother them or bring food and don't share.”

Corvayne saw a hint of something moving in the gloom ahead, like a large potato with wings strapped to it. “Right.”

Up the stairs Wick waited for Corvayne, then gestured, robe matching the blue color from glow stones embedded in the passage. Corvayne saw pictures of large cities, somewhat limited by the stone carvers artistic skills, but clearly cities with windows.

“Can you read what it says?” Wick asked, a hint of excitement in her voice.

“Heed the warning here. We had made a terrible mistake, and paid for our borrowed power with our lives.”

He gestured to the city. “Once we were prosperous. We call ourselves 'Pilgrims' and wandered The Great Gate Road.”

The cities in the first section gave way to paths winding through the stars, with figures on them standing tall and holding objects. Swords, tools, pots, scrolls, a few leading animals.

“We walked the long dark paths, and many suffered and became lost on the long path to enlightenment.”

The panel showed people falling off the paths. Pilgrims with their heads down walked past bones.

“A wise man showed us how to tame the wild roads. We made our rounds in peace for many years. We tamed the children-races of the-”

“Children?” Wick interrupted.

“I'm trying to be as literal as possible. And look, you can see elves and dwarves and humans... all smaller than the pilgrims.”

The image he was pointing at flowed into a stone ring made up of segments. He looked back at Wick. “Do you want to take a picture?”

“Oh, I took pictures. I'm recording you!”

“Love you Wick.”

“Love you too, fucker!” She snapped her fingers. “I said it. Now, translate!”

Corvayne smiled and looked. The ring had points on it that were clearly distinct and had been made with colored rocks... a black circle at one. A gold eagle at another. A pair of green hands, held together. A blue stone lock, and crying red faces.

“The gift, however, spurred us for more. The pilgrimage extended our lives and gave us power, but took us years and years. We delved into the power that had tamed the roads, and built the first artificial portals. In doing so, we discovered Towers and Dungeons.”

An image of stairs up and down, spiraling to gods above and demons below. Corvayne frowned. “From below, monsters came. There was war... then... he appeared.”

An image of The Magus appearing in a circle of Pilgrims. “We were saved from our war, but it wasn't long before our savior turned on us.”

Corvayne stopped before the stone panel and saw a tiny masked figure pointing, and meteors falling on a city. “Everything we built, he toppled. No statues left, no cities, only heaps and pock marked worlds. In our ruins, his minions tore everything they could find apart.”

An image of the portal road, shattered. A panel of people walking into portals, then vanishing. “We tried many things out of desperation, until a desperate group of our summoners brought heroes to our world.”

A circle where small figures came from the circle. “The strangers aided us, defeating the wizard's followers and binding him.”

The last panel on the wall was of broken cities, collapsing to dust as figures around The Magus pushed him into a pit. “It was too late. Our era had ended. The fighting had drained the portals, and the great road was shattered. We had lost everything. We were pilgrims no more. But for what? The great evil was not defeated. It will break free!”

Corvayne stopped before the end of the hall, another ornate panel acting as the ending. The Magus's mask, carved into green stone, around which the artist had drawn thousands of spiny vines. In the blue light it flickered with hints of opaline glass just under the surface of the rocks.

“While he burned our worlds, the Beguiler spoke to me. Told me to spit out the ashes of the past. He told me how to hide this warning! He told me the great evil sows his own demise! One comes who will rebuild the road! The city of forever will descend! The lost will find their home!”

Wick handed him water, and Corvayne took a drink, realizing he had been stressing his throat by yelling the last few lines. “Sorry, carried away.”

Wick gave him a little hug. “We all get carried away. Sometimes.”

She drifted away, then shone on the next set of panels walking back. It was all text. “Are you up for all this?” Wick looked at him.

“Let me try.... it's a different writer. Or they wrote it at a different time. It's all more personal”

“I have been cast aside, so I will cast aside. My love, I walk away from you, bury you deep. The enemy I love most, I vow to strike you down, that a greater evil is foiled. I have no home to give up, no treasure to offer. So I offer to the rift myself. My body itself. My dreams. My hopes. My Love. Take everything.”

Corvayne stopped. “We might be reading it backwards.”

Wick shrugs. “If it follows the other wall, you read it walking back.”

“The Watchers prepare for a grim war...”

Corvayne stopped, then continued. “A grim war, one of weapons and devices and of a magic that ended all magics. I hope for their success but know they will fail in the end. They have not walked the road and washed their souls. In the end, he will find the little cracks in them and tear them apart.”

“The answer is in this tower. I will become a warrior, a killer, a monster if need be. Whatever it takes to win.”

Corvayne stopped at the last panel. “It just says I'm sorry, over and over. With names.”

“Is yours on there?”

He read. “There are watcher names.... Crown-Half-Worn.” Corvayne couldn't help but curl his lip downward.

“Who's that?”

“My father.”

“Tell me the ones you don't know!”

“Suckers-on-Suckers. Smiles-And-Tears. Short-Road-Home. Most of them I don't know. That and 'The fated one'.”

Wick nodded. “You'll have to say a whole slew of the names on there, and tell me who's there, and who is missing, and which ones you don't know.”

Corvayne sighed. “It's a lot... and my memory might lead us astray here.”

Wick stopped what she was going to say and bit her lip, then looked up at him. “Corvayne, I won't make you do it if it hurts.”

He shrugged. “Knowing it was probably a long, long time ago and might not have been real...” He wouldn't say he wasn't still angry. He just wasn't sure what he had known was real. “Maybe we should have brought Spears.” He pointed at her name on the etching, Then started from the top.

“I don't know who Suckers-on-Suckers is. Spears is near the top of the list. Mugs-Empty-Again was my Axe trainer, hairy guy who spent most of the time laughing when he was beating me senseless. Diamonds-In-Passing was the leader of my age group and a stickler for rules. Suns-First-Water was Spear's friend, and was very possessive of her. Better-Days-Ahead was the cook who saved a caravan a few years before I left...”

As he went through Watcher names his mind drifted back to the sun-bleached desert town he had lived in, and as he shifted through names and locations he paused.

“Waves-Within was my spear trainer... but...”

Wick was patient and understanding for about ten seconds then started to fidget. “Well? What? Don't sit on it.”

“I don't remember ever having to recover after a lesson. I do recal; putting ice on my bruises, or walking into first aid, and in my mind he slapped me silly with a practice spear, however I should also associate it with limping out of the arena...”

Wick clapped. “Because he probably WASN'T kicking the shit out of you! Memory fuckery!”

“Somebody was, I remember getting first aid from axe training for sure. Mugs-Empty-Again broke both of my arms.” Corvanyne certainly remembered sitting in the clinic twice and having his Axe trainer tell him both times 'Well laddie, it will give you time to think about how you're defending!' before shuffling out. But no, Waves-Within never had Spears carry him off to the clinic. He had been annoyed that sometimes Corvayne would show up with wounds...

He checked for some other names. Spaces-Torn-Asunder, who had been his one island of neutrality was there. He started trying to remember the first few times he had been around Spaces. When they were introduced. Once again, there were gaps. He had trouble past a certain point. It was something else though.

“So, I told you about my one... I guess friend or mentor, Spaces-Torn-Asunder?”

Wick nodded. “That's the guy who wasn't a dick to you.”

“Except he was, exactly once. I remember he yelled at me when I first rotated to do basic repair training with him. He stated that I wasn't fit for this class and he didn't want to see me again. So I left, then I was told to come back, and since then he was always chill. No praise, but-”

Spaces-Torn-Asunder was the person the other villagers usually said was the smartest. He certainly came off that way. What if... that the bland neutrality wasn't just him being far more tolerant of Corvayne. That he had figured out something was wrong with, for example, Spears? But then, why didn't he just tell everyone to leave him alone?

Spears had started to do it too. The flesh and blood woman in his memory still told him he was a worthless pile of dung, but before he had left she often would be biting her lip. Just two people had changed, when he hadn't. One of them who now liked him. He took a deep breath in as he felt thorns start to uncurl inside him.

“Corvayne what's-”

He held up a hand. “I need a distraction. I dove too close to something and it's activating the curses... go ask Spears if-”

Wick took her glasses off and undid her hair, then swept it around. “Did I mention that finding secrets gets me going?”

Corvayne took the moment to sit and start focusing on his stable triangle, discovering that the ragged feeling of those thorns in him backed off as he cycled his power. That and Wick had pulled open her shirt to flash her bra. He smiled as some of the pain receded.

“Thanks... it's helping. Still, give me some room. I don't want to get you tangled in spikes.”

Wick fixed her bra and shirt then re-closed her robe. “You're getting harder to tease.”

“Thank you. Okay, remember Magus Mom? The Pilgrim thing jogged my mind. We need to ask Spears if she knows where the road picks up here. The panels are hints... but we need to find those colored features.”

He walked back to the Magus mask panel at the end, and placed his hands on the two raised hands, and tried pushing. With a slight groan, the wall split down the middle then swung open into a blurry pink and silver portal.

“Oh of course, YOU touch it...”

Corvayne shrugged and watched as her light caught another carving. “Wait! Hold it there.... 'I have gone on this way. The changes take things from me... but I must stay strong. I will reach the top.”

He thought about it. A message for him. Perhaps a Watcher? Or was it the Starry-Eyed girl? It could be his mom for all he knew, or The Spider. Or a pilgrim. Or Grunt. Or Spears. Or... himself, to be honest.

“We got all this? We need more eyes on it. That, and to see what's in this tower entrance.”

Wick looked at him. “I recorded everything here, because I know you. I'm going to try to speak with Spears to try to figure out who wrote this.”

Corvayne nodded. Wick attacked puzzles and mysteries with a sort of single minded focus he wish he had. “That and we should consider asking a local expert what they know about the Pilgrims.” He had read many books about ruin seeking heroes and started thinking about bribes and fetch quests and dealing with scholars, winding their way into thieves guilds in sickly slums to trade wits and daggers with the information brokers of a city, tricking their way in to see a royal historian in some fortified castle, maybe even doing a heist in some imposing cliff-side monastery to get a book that had everything they needed. Perhaps they escape on a passing airship...

He re-focused. For now, he needed to prepare Wick for some both boring and dangerous work. “Given the tech level and the way the adventurers guild tried to claim jump our loot from here, this ruins falling into our lap might be a stroke of luck we won't see for months. Finding someone who knows more might be an ordeal for outsiders such as ourselves. Please don't get frustrated if it takes a long time.”

Wick laughed and grinned. “Or we do nothing.”

Corvayne's image of having to disarm a magic vault while the walls closed in vanished. “Nothing?”

Wick tapped her head. “We do nothing because the world's foremost expert on Pilgrims is going to stroll into our camp any day now.”