When Nyx slumped over at a mere suggestion, Corvayne was pretty split between assuming it was a joke and wondering if he had accidentally done something to his friend. He walked over and placed a finger on Nyx's throat, felt his pulse and saw him breath, then shrugged and started walking over to the treasure chest.

Undine looked between him and Nyx. “Does your entire group have fainting spells?”

Wick was thinking. “So you had a mindscape, and now Hari has one, and maybe Nyx has one now... If Seru has one it might be sexually transmitted!”

Corvayne frowned. “You don't have one though, Wick.”

“Maybe I have to feel it!” Wick winked and slapped her butt, which made Corvayne smile. Worrying about her for a few days made her return to normalcy that much sweeter.

Lady Blood Claw picked Nyx up and slung him over her back. Corvayne was about to turn to tell Hari to handle treasure, but she was already kicking the chest open, face luminous with the prospect of finding more stuff.

She pulled a cloak out, woven with dark gray fabric that looked like it was swirling like a violent storm. “Ohhhh! This one looks good!”

Corvayne noticed then that the chest was stone carved to look like it was hairy, and that it had been stocked with a lot of objects wrapped in furs. He reached in, pulling out what looked like a hairball with a pin and a note.

Corvayne picked it up and cleared his throat. “Fur-mal detonator. Looks like the Tower is paying attention again.”

Hari started laughing. “Another Apex level item! Stormbringer's Cape!” She pressed it to her chest and bounced around in a circle.

Undine spun around. “You must be joking!”

Corvayne pulled out a pair of socks that were distressingly furry. “How about these?”

Hari shook her head. “Minor enchantments to make them comfy in cold.”

He pulled out some fancy looking potions, the flasks made from what looked like fiber optic material shaped to look like fur and wrapped in bands of fur to protect them from impact.

“Greater healing potions. Never a bad pickup. Oh, this one's bark skin, except it says on the bottle 'will grow hair on your chest'.”

Undine grabbed the potion from him, tugging it close as she put a bony finger up in front of Corvayne's face. “You fool! You don't know for sure what it is!”

He shrugged. “It's the same color and consistency as every other barkskin potion, and I've seen a whole bunch of them. Notice the fur there is arranged into little shields? Form follows function here. It is a variant potion, probably 'iron fur' rather than 'barkskin.'”

Undine narrowed her eyes, and after an identify handed it back. “Your fortune is frustrating.”

He found a short tanto that gleamed with water on it's edge. He offered it to Hari to look at. “Drowning Dagger, wet hair version. Common, but a nice effect that triggers on the first hit.”

He found a set of three normal looking clips, but opened it up and saw what looked like stuffed hair in it. “Anti Fur-sonell rounds. Hari, does this work with any gun?”

She took it and pulled a pistol from a holster on her thigh. Corvayne caught a little hint of tentacles on the inner hem of her dress as she tried reloading. The clip in question changed from a curved feeder to a pistol extended clip.

“Yes.”

The last mundane items in the bottom of the chest were bundles of fur, microfiber blankets, and shampoo with an image of a bigfoot closing it's eyes as shower hit it and flowery designs around the title of the bottle: 'Mane Story Quest brand shampoo.'.

Hari looked at it. “That's normal quality, but it's scented with 'new car smell'. Do new cars smell really good?”

Lady Blood Claw shook her head. “It's an industrial smell so you'd probably not like it.”

Letting them banter, Corvayne pushed aside a few more bundles of fur to peer at the bottom of the chest and saw what looked like a curled up giant straight razor. Picking it up, it flipped open, the straight razor blade forming the head of a scythe. The shaft grew hair, swaying gently with a breeze he didn't feel.

Undine cast [Investigate] on it and rolled her eyes. “The thing is an exceptional class scythe. A chest full of notable items, no wonder you kids are already so damn well equipped. Fetch me another investigation book!”

Hari's hands were grasping for the scythe, so Corvayne handed it over. “You wouldn't use that over an airfoil blade, would you?”

“Listen! Headseeker: Made to thresh beast cotton, it has an appetite for hair. It improves charisma by making the user have better looking hair, and has a 'conditioner' effect-”

Lady Blood Claw looked daggers at Hari. “Please tell me that was you picking the wrong Cascadian word, and not a joke you made. PLEASE.”

“I barely make mistakes these days.” She huffed. “Anyway, when you Investigate it, that's what it says. Conditioner effect: shadow damage when striking a target with less hair than you, and it steals some hair otherwise.”

Undine shifted through the items. “It's all hair themed. What about the Pilgrims?”

Corvayne gestured to a door that had opened to the side of the arena. “One door is up, the other is out. I say we go for floor ten and see if there are hints.”

Lady Blood Claw nodded at Corvayne's suggestion. “I think also if I can discover how to unlock my mindscape as well, then that might help you and I understand if there's a reason my race is marked as it is and what Pilgrims place in the universe is, or if I'm just a random outlier who didn't die when she should have.”

Undine reached out and put a hand up on Lady Blood Claw's shoulder, and Corvayne saw her skin flicker to a light gray that he guessed from her facial expression was 'very uncomfortable.'

“You have to accept you're where you are for a reason. Even if you know it's a lie, push through.”

Corvayne was looking at the notes on some of the items. “The Tower hasn't done this in a while... so what's different about this tower and Cascadia Forest that now it's giving us these little cute notes again, as well as themed treasure?”

Wick took the bottle of shampoo. “Main story quest is a video game term... I see a lot of blank looks here. Fine. It's like a movie- Undine I see you twitching, It's like... if you invited people into a play. You would need to feed them lines to get them to act. Like 'My lord, were you planning to take your sword and duel so and so today?'”

Undine considered the bottle. “So it's a clue for us to... do something?”

Wick wiggled the bottle. “Not a perfect one. But the bigfoot on it makes me think it's meant for me and Corvayne. The tower wants us here, and I guess it wants us to go up.”

Corvayne held a hand up, and Wick spotted his gesture right away and flapped her fingers in a 'give it to me' gesture.

“Wick, have you been tracking who's possibly trying to manipulate us?”

She brightened. “Yes! The System itself with what abilities and items we get, who gets a mindscape, possibly drawing in people from outside universes to round out our team or alter how we handle problems OR introduce us to systems and beings, thus Lythandies is on the list. The Tower, mostly the above, but certainly having a hand in picking say, bosses. The Magus for sure can change behavior. Would he push Corvayne and us to be hostile to him for some reason? It also might be that we are ALLIES for some reason, but I trust my gut and it says that's not what's going on. While Corvayne doesn't seem to angry about The Magus and his bullshit, the rest of us are prone to assume he is an enemy by his actions towards people we like, or it's another source feeding us info to make us fight that guy. We ARE under pressure from Baron D, as well as the potential Goule represents. Then there's our allies, current and past. Dawn knows more than she's told us. Grunt is on our side but-”

“The big one can change what [Investigate] pulls up.” Undine warned.

Wick quirked her lip. “Really? Noted. There's The Spider, whom is a black hole at the moment but certainly has influenced events.”

Corvayne coughed. “She is certainly up to something. There's a fragment of her in my mind now.”

Wick stared at Corvayne. “Why... didn't... you... SAY that RIGHT away!?”

“If she wanted to kill us or take over our minds, she wouldn't stop with me.”

Wick was silent as she considered that. “Fine. Well, she's got goals and we don't know them. The adventurer's guild on this planet is pushing us to deal with Bell. We don't know enough about it either. I don't think Bell counts as manipulating us because she's so freaking bad at it, and I don't think it's reverse psychology. That brings us to GODS, and whatever The Dust Man is. In the last few weeks they've started responding to followers on our world. Before? They didn't, or if they did it was hidden from us. Which gets us onto a whole other can of worms, what happened April 9th that seemed to trigger a whole bunch of things.”

Undine whispered something to Hari, and Hari responded with something that Corvayne understood was the local date but heard as 'April 9th'. As in, the day he arrived.

Undine narrowed her eyes. “There were some earthquakes on that day, and oddities in the movement of the jeweled moon.”

Corvayne folds his arms. “So that brings us to... ourselves. I have weird dreams. I don't think they are from the curse. I also have shadow limbs, and they have helped me, but I don't think they are entirely me sometimes.”

He saw out from the corner of his vision Wick's eyes widen for a moment but she turned as if looking at the mountains, and Corvayne couldn't get a good look at her face without giving away that he spotted her.

Undine took a half step away from Corvayne. “Are you saying that my pupil is more sane than the lot of you? Pah. I suppose I did some good with her then.” The older woman ruffled Hari's hair, and Corvayne's lover blushed and fussed at the hand.

“Stop stop! It will look terrible!”

Nyx chose that moment to wake up, looking queasy and holding his head and his stomach. “I had to eat a plate of thorns, but... it was worth it. Ha! Corvayne, you know your little power shifting ability? I took it as well! Many thanks for your very long, very drawn out descriptions of the insides of your head!”

“I don't know if I should be impressed you listened or annoyed that you told LBC you needed it to fall asleep.” Wick said dryly, folding her arms while still looking off the edge of the arena at the mountains in the distance or the stars above.

Nyx spun on the tall alien woman, gesturing with a crooked finger as he cried out, “Traitor!”

Lady Blood Claw put her hands on her hips. “Not that you listen to me, but treat Corvayne like a friend and less like a weirdo you need a ride from more often.”

Corvayne shrugged. “It can be something he has in common with Spears. I put both of them to sleep.”

The group started moving, but Corvayne watched Wick as she turned back. She glanced at him too. Obviously, she was worried about the mind packet Growl-Whine put into him, but now he had his own question, perhaps from having enhanced insight. She had left out the most notable person who might be changing their course. Who had mysteries about herself she didn't know.

He didn't blame her for it, but he didn't miss that Wick didn't mention herself.