Corvayne took a moment to swing his spear through a tree with [Cross Skill: Sundering Strike] as he walked. They were trekking through brush, trying to solve an odd semi-3d maze. Compass was telling him the way to the stairs, but the landscape under a pale blue sky kept folding and twisting, maintaining gravity while sending them off course. The auto-mapper that Mosh had made was struggling with trying to deal with gravity warping in non-euclidean ways, drawing and erasing lines as they curled around and over waves.

Undine seemed to be the least frustrated, with the old woman stressing to Hari (and by extension him) the need for patience. He wasn't sure if their goals lined up entirely, but they needed to keep getting materials and essence from fighting in The Tower, and he hadn't reached his mindscape since he nearly died after the battle at The Source.

That was not even counting that he was still waiting, two days after entering, for Wick to swear, or fly off on a tangent. Instead, she had been quiet, formal, and requested that he not sleep near her. At this point, Hari looked worried too. Corvayne took a deep breath. For all his fears, his shadow hands kept motioning for him to go forward. So he played the spear, thrusting onwards, trying to keep himself from turning knots on himself worrying that he was missing something critical.

It reminded him of every time before going off into the desert, the nagging feeling that he was going to reach for his condenser and not have it, then wither up and die of thirst when he forgot his compass as well. Granted, he never bothered with his compass because the desert wasn't very difficult to navigate once you got a sense of what animals lived where, but still.

Corvayne advanced on a path leaing to a curl of earth like a frozen tsunami of dirt and bushes looming over them. Surveying the chaotic landscape's brown dirt and yellow leaves and black branches, Corvayne saw another set of drop bunnies and whistled sharply once. Nyx got the signal and followed his gaze as the monsters hurled themselves out of their burrows, leaping far enough to hit the gravity reverse and start falling like furry meteors. Getting hit by one of their armored heads would break bones, but Nyx's shield was perfect for covering an area and there were plinks as the monsters hit the barrier and were reflected off, one of them snapping it's neck from connecting at the wrong angle.

The others were dazed and Corvayne didn't give them the courtesy of recovery, darting into the group with spear strikes. Behind him, Wick blasted an incoming drop bunny and send it off course while Hari and Undine teleported out of the way, then Hari flashed back into the group. The pair's airfoils sprayed blood, armored headpeices, and pristine white fur in a cloud whenever they connected with more than one hit.

Corvayne didn't let his attention stray long, as another monster was trying to pick both him and the rabbits off. Corvayne switched with shadow hands to his assault rifle and lined up a burst at what looked like a rubber band with insect parts grafted on in random spots. It also snapped out, trying get something caught on one of it's serrated legs. Hari had gotten caught by the first one and blinked to safety, so it had taken a rabbit victim getting caught to see how the monster used it's elasticity to brain it's prey.

A few bullets at the base of the burrow killed the monster, shredding organs and causing the mound far above him to ooze green ichor on the ceiling.

Lady Blood Claw hit another with her bow, letting Nyx worry about rabbits on the ground with his whip. The monsters, once up, would leap around like little battering rams. While no one had gotten hit by them falling in a few days, everyone in the group had taken a number of bruising hits.

Case in point, one of them managed to land a glancing blow on Undine's hand. She hissed for a moment before Wick used [Rewind] to undo what may have been a broken wrist on the older woman.

Corvayne's shadow hands snaked out and started thrusting and killing, and against a straggler rabbit trying to fall on him Corvayne simply pulled it into the ground near him with higher gravity, causing the monster to crumple in a bloody mess.

He kept his eyes peeled after using [Cross Skill: Reap] to kill three more, but he saw the last rabbit die and then called, “Is everyone alright?”

A chorus of “Yes” and “Yep” and “Fine” returned to him, all five of his allies whole.

“Rabbit stew again for lunch?” Hari asked.

“I'm trying to ration how much pre-made soup stock I use until Spears gets the hang of making it from bones.” Corvayne replied, having done some math about various sundries on the truck. Some of the things he worried about were trivial for Mosh to craft, but they had yet to find a monster that bleed syrup.

Though, on the other hand, the drop rabbits were really good without anything else, once they were roasted. They had a salty taste with a hint of carrot and citrus.

No time to drool. They were going to figure out how to get to the stairs before the whole plain shifted back to night and they had to camp.

Only a minute later Hari found she could take shortcuts to the other side of the rolling landscape through the burrows the bandipedes made... and suddenly Corvayne and the group were able to just walk in the direction they needed to go, possibly going further in fifteen minutes than any given four hours of walking previously.

“Why didn't we notice that?” Nyx asked, sounding more annoyed at everyone else rather than questioning why HE didn't notice it.

Undine apparently had let her enchantment lapse and hadn't noticed, so she started recasting as Corvayne responded with, “We accepted it as part of the problem so we didn't think it could be part of the solution.”

Lady Blood Claw sniffed. “I prefer when you sound like a warrior rather than a poster with a kitten on it.”

“We are all hanging in there, Lady.” Corvayne responded, keeping his face neutral even though he wanted to smile. At least, he wanted to smile until he saw that Wick was hanging in the back again, looking dazed.

“Wick.” He started, and it took a few finger snaps to pull her out of her daze. “Are you okay? You've been acting odd since we got into this Tower. Are you sick?”

She looked pale to him. “No.” He watched her look up at him, and there was something with her look that was... perhaps revulsion? It wasn't something he'd seen before. It was like she was a stranger, and he was a stranger, and she didn't know why he was bothering her. “No... Maybe. It...”

Corvayne waited, but Wick didn't follow up, instead looking down at the ground before leaning over, face completely neutral as she spoke. “We should go. We got dungeon to clear.”

“I'm worried about you. Is something wrong?”

Wick stood up, angry now. “What's wrong!? Hmm? You don't know?” She stopped, then stood still, seeing everyone looking at her. “... he doesn't know.” She muttered, pushing past him, then stopping to hold her hands up.

“If you are all finished being amused,” Wick sighed then lifted her chin before continuing, “Then we should proceed. Perhaps the solution to all the rotten things the universe has rendered onto us is ahead. Corvayne, please proceed.”

Hari stepped forward. “Wick, Corvayne isn't the only person here that thinks you've been acting strange....”

Nyx groaned and slapped his head. “Did you knock her up?”

“NO!” Wick snarled, then turned to Hari. “I apologize Lady Silkbloom. I feel mostly... fine... just a little empty.”

Lady Blood Claw waved Corvayne over, and so Corvayne stopped watching Hari try to talk with Wick and strode over to her.

“Please tell me you have an idea why she might do this.” Corvayne pleaded.

Lady Blood Claw nodded. “The Magus's... followers... had something like this sometimes. He had... groupies. Most of the time they were criminally insane and unstable. Then a few times they'd snap back to being a person. Usually for a few hours.”

Corvayne frowned. “You don't think we should just leave? It started when we went in.”

“I don't know what triggered it, but I never trusted when the shift happened either, since they were all very destructive women.” LBC frowned. “I'm being rude, I shouldn't imply Wick is by default, insane, but... she isn't acting hostile or destructive, so perhaps the shift happening is something else.”

Corvayne wasn't entirely sure if Wick had spoken to Lady Blood Claw about her circumstances. Wick had stated that there was something like another person sometimes pressing her to act, and with the connection to The Magus made by Lady Blood Claw he had to consider if Wick, the wizard, and the brides she was speaking of were connected.

“If she isn't better by the boss, I'm pulling us out.” Corvayne stated, then continued. “I'm not above turning back if she gets more unstable, either”

LBC nodded. “She's a little less formal than the slime bath incident, but it sort of reminds me of that.”

Nyx clapped his hands. “Undine is going up the stairs Corvayne, cmon.”

Corvayne frowned and pushed his way to the front of the group and up the stairs, passing Undine in the blue stone corridor as she made a courtly gesture for him to go first. Checking the third floor, it looked like the plains outside the source, but with sections where it looked like walls of dust, moving at high speeds.

Wick walked next to him and pointed. “I... think we can make our way through gaps in the wind where the walls divert it. I apologize for my shameful display back there. I lost my composure, and was lashing out. It wasn't fitting for someone in my place.”

Corvayne felt his gut twist a little as she bowed to them. “Think nothing of it.” Had she gotten hit by something like the jam from that facility? The formal language... it was very close. The same effect that also made him forget Lady Blood Claw's name... and what may have accelerated his own self destructive meltdown a few weeks ago.

Undine snorted. “I'm not getting involved with whatever cheap minstrel play you're putting on. I'm going to go figure out what this floor is about.”

Hari looked worried, but Corvayne shook his head when she looked at him, then followed Undine. The wind was, as it turned out, razor sharp and made the imitation of the high plains they were on another maze like the previous floors. A stairway up formed out of a free standing arch, which was the most reality defying bending of space with staircases yet.

Floor four was a weird sort of crawlspace made of stone with dirt under titanic runic blocks hurtling across a plain. Looking out from gaps he could see that it would be a nightmare to navigate above the tunnels they were in. It was less of a maze than previous floors, with a fairly easy to navigate grid layout. Sand golems and something like undead crabs that spit bone spears proved a poor match for the group as Nyx didn't even bother a response with the golems, instead walking through them and dispersing them on his shield. Lady Blood Claw used the crabs as target practice as they had poor aim and were slow to reload.

The fifth floor was something different. Corvayne didn't know why, but the air felt different. It was a twighlight plain, similar to the one outside save that it was not broken by streams, nor dappled with a scattering of wall fragments. Instead, a dusty road on an endless gray plain led to a titanic tower in the distance, Dark green and orange in places but stark black as it rose against a cacophony of colored stars. Blue and red and purple gas clouds shimmered with glittering lights.

Hari pointed out the wild-life, which seemed to stay away from the road. He saw large three legged monsters standing forty feet tall that seemed to be eating leaves from needle thin trees with a prehensile tongue coming from their heads. Something that looked like a skeletal extended hair-pick floated far above, possibly hundreds of feet long trailing shimmering glass ribbons. Other strange lifeforms hid in burrows or skittered away as they passed down the road towards a light they saw between them and the tower.

It wasn't a town, more a shelter. A small circle of rocks where a simple wood structure had been built, with a covered stable for horses and a well, as well as a place for a fire and glow stone lighting.

Corvayne peeked his head in. “Clear.” Then stepped inside the dark space, sitting down. Suprisingly, Wick, who had been straying away from him, walked right beside him and lifted her light, using the bench to stand up.

“Look, graffiti.”

Corvayne turned and saw what she was talking about. Starting high up on the wall inside the shelter, something was written in the Pilgrim's script.

He cleared his throat, then started reading it aloud. “I don't know who follows me, but if you are this far you can still turn back. I have gone much further. I have challenged this endless maze, alone. Every step through it, I am trading my old self away. More and more, I change. Floor fifty... is not the end. The gifts I've been given, I cannot give back. I have heard the voice of The Tower. It is calling me upwards still. To the apex. I am becoming more, changing. If you follow me, know you will change too.”

The words wrapped around to over the door, and Corvayne stood on the bench to keep reading.

“I know what must be up there. It spoke to me in dreams. It can not move a pebble on it's own, yet it is the vastest greatest most powerful thing that has ever been. It speaks to me, tells me I am changing more and more. I know this. They will not know me any longer. I will hide from everything, a secret little thorn. It brings me my only joy. When I find water, I can no longer look at myself. It is becoming harder to cry.”

Another carving, lower. More clear? Maybe it was written earlier, as it was at the height he might expect someone resting to scratch it. “It's been weeks. I have fallen into pointless circles of fighting, exploring, gathering, then trying to get further. If I was not such a coward, I am sure I would be dead. Instead, is this better? I want to go up. If you are strong, and find my body, inherit my gear, and the will to go to the top.”

Another. “I tried to speak, but my voice was the sound of things crumbling, hints of metal screeching, the rumble of a Watcher engine.” He stopped as he thought about some figure, slowly mutating away. Perhaps that's what he was? A doomed fragment of a man who walked into the tower and never really came out.

Wick nudged him, gently alerting him to his lapse of attention, and he turned to her and saw her back away but gesture at a wall. At that moment, looking at her eyes, he swore Wick was a pretty stranger he had never seen before. There was something wrong about how she moved and spoke and carried herself, even if every feature was her. She seemed to know it, deflecting his gaze to the next spot, down on the other side of the door near knee height. “Please, keep reading...”

Corvayne took a deep breath, pretending that it didn't bother him. “Hard to write. Fingers changing. Tower will... give me what I need. To fight him. Next time, I'll get there. I'm close to the top. Please, don't forget... what I was.” He reached out and touched a carved figure of a woman, distorted.

He looked under the bench. The script was barely legible. “What have I done? Not a person. I'm not a person anymore... I don't know how to go home anymore. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.”

Nyx clapped his hands. “Well, I think we've overcome a mystery with stunning ease! Capital job. You had a Pilgrim who went up into the tower after The Magus killed everyone for revenge, and over eons managed to solo their way to the top, and that's how you get things like The Spider who can't even talk anymore but are a match for an army. Can we keep going?”

Hari did the Nal'Ferral equivilant of flipping Nyxion off, then cast [Investigate]. “It looks like the ones up high are older and more coherent.... but madness took the writer as they dropped to the ground.”

Corvayne looked to Lady Blood Claw. “You said that the shifting you have was a side effect of you getting powers, right?”

LBC nodded. “Yes.”

Corvayne continued, “So it's possible the writer underwent a catastrophic mutation?”

Her skin flushed a few different colors. “It also could just be the tower writing things for it's own amusement. We don't know. It creates things that could be, or we think should be.”

Corvayne tried to give Lady Blood Claw a reassuring look. “The writing in the hallway also suggested that something had changed... I suppose this is something we all need to consider. Going up in the tower changes us.”

Undine pointed at herself. “So does being an adventurer. I gave up the comforts of a family to chase my dream. For the matter, getting old changes you too. I'd never put up with a brat like Hari-”

Corvayne caught Hari fuming out of the corner of his eye but kept his attention on Undine. “-back when I was younger. But... I suppose she's led me to you. It brings me around to saying I never had a real daughter, I put it all into my pupils. This person, who left these little hints? Maybe they regret being alone, but they crawled back down from that tower-”

Corvayne held up a hand to stop Hari from interrupting her teacher's lesson with a correction about how Tower floors work.

“To give us a legacy. This is not a warning, it's them pleading with us to follow them. They knew the only group that could read it would be an ally of the Pilgrims. So, Hari, Mister Corvayne, wasn't that the question you had as soon as you saw this setup, with these floors gradually strengthening monsters? What is it all for? It says right there, the answers are at the top!”

Corvayne thought about it. Undine had her own motives, for sure, but he had heard The Spider pushed the group to reach a certain floor. “I think we're all interested in going further up. Especially from this entrance. So, let us keep going.”

The long plains led them to an abandoned town at the base of the tower. The buildings were made of what looked like petrified wood and steel girders, all smoothed by a faint wind that ran through the starry sky, kicking up little plumes of dust. The group didn't see any more markings nor chests in the empty warrens of rooms clustered at the foot of the tower. It reminded Corvayne of tiny mushrooms sprouting from the base of a titanic pine tree, slashing the colorful night sky with a dark green nearly the color black. One of the glowing orange lights at the base outlined a dark arch. Within was the stairway up.

“Some time, when we have better means to do so, perhaps we should see what happens when you climb these super structures The Tower creates. That might be an inn question, to find out how big the floors are.”

Nyx waved his hand at the setting. “Well, I could use a drink. So the Tower damn well better cough up this bar.”

Corvayne was not entirely surprised when they stepped into a dimly lit bar. He nearly dropped his spear in relief when he heard Wick say “The Inn's the first floor? What the fuck just happened?”