Without wasting much time, Corvayne used his Hover-bike to ferry the few remaining villagers across the giant canyon, then picked up the kids he had left on the High Plains side and ran them back to camp. Princess Bell stayed behind, talking with the villagers who had questions about Corvayne but mostly looking across the huge chasm to where there were two trails of smoke visible against the daytime sky. A few minutes later he rode into camp and roped Spears and Reaper into getting other bikes to help him carry folks back.

He also tasked Mosh with making radios. It was silly that they hadn't put effort into communications assuming that they would be mostly split by Tower distances rather than same-world ones.

He decided to leave the kids with Shallee and Gary. “Just keep them out of trouble.”

Gary stepped up. “Sensei, I can handle this! But you sure you don't want me to come along?”

“After we pick people up, I want to scout alone if possible. The Princess is only along because she knows the area. I might as well ask, where did Wick and Hari go off to?”

Gary looked down at his hands as if Corvayne had asked him to take stock of his fingers. “Mister I, Grunt, Hari, Wick, and Horton went back to the dungeon. They didn't talk to me, that's for sure. They were looking for Brines, but him, Bearer, Steel, Seru, Kirae, and Varia all went out for Tower time. Oh and Spider is out of camp... but Growl-and-Win is always doing Tower runs.”

That was 11 people and 1 super powered spider away from the camp. “I might need you to double up on guarding this place. I'll bring some villagers back but... I'd rather they not fight. If they are okay with playing lookout until I'm back, great. We'll take it. Otherwise just get them fed.”

Corvayne tried to do the math on who he had and what they could do. “Nyx and Lady Blood Claw are here too...”

“You want them to help?” Gary turned but Corvayne shook his head.

“They had their workout. Give em a break, but work with Mosh and June to get ready to defend against incursions... I don't know if I caught the first group of cavalry or if there's groups of hostile horse-men running around our side of the river. We might want to warn the nearby vi-”

“Sir, respectfully, fuck that village.”

Corvayne stopped. “Gary, between you and Kirae is there something I need to know about our closest neighbors?”

Gary looked angry as he paused then spoke, “... No. If Shallee changes her mind, Kirae and Spears and I would take care of it. It has to do with why she was out there alone. You got enough to worry about, right?”

“Okay Gary... if it's complicated then maybe ask Wick or Mister I for advice. You let Shallee know she's welcome to come with us as long as she likes. Maybe we need Mosh to build another... Hmm. He comes up a lot when I have plans... I need to do something nice for him and June, I ask them to do everything.”

Gary thought about it. “You should force them and Varia to do some sort of activity where all three of them go to like, a hot-springs inn. I would also suggest giving them an apartment they all live in together, or stranding them on a spaceship, or every time we go to town accidentally having them stay in the honeymoon suite together when the rest of the hotel is full...”

Corvayne was pretty sure he was currently giving Gary the stare everyone on Cascadia used to give him when he talked about weapons or eating desert critters or getting beat up by everyone he knew.

Gary thought for a moment. “I'm trying to say Mosh and Varia need to hook up so Varia stops getting pissed at you.”

“Oh. It seems really obvious what you... wait why would that fix her not liking me?” Corvayne asked but Gary made a lips zipped motion. “Fine, I got an idea on that, but first I'm collecting the people I managed to save, then doing some more scouting.”

Gary looked at him. “You fighting monsters?”

Corvayne nodded. “Yes.”

“He who fights monsters....” Gary looked expectantly at Corvayne as he trailed off. “Dude, don't leave me hanging!”

Corvayne nodded. “He who fights with monsters should take care to select a weapon that out ranges their natural weapons, I know that well my pupil.” He put a hand on Gary's shoulder, and saw his pupils face scrunch as the man tried not to say something he badly wanted to blurt out, which made Corvayne smile.

“You're improving in both mind and body Gary. When I'm not horribly distracted and pulled in six directions, we should see if we can get you up to where you can use [Flow-Like-Water].”

“Oh yeah!”

Leaving the beaming man behind, he got back over to his bike. Reaper and Spears were both armed with both their normal spears and longer pole-arms made from red metal. Spears had a spare, which Corvayne accepted.

“New Mosh toys?” He asked as he accepted the spear and whistled. For a weapon nearly 12 feet long, the lances were very light.

Spears nodded, the slime woman clearly happy. “We didn't have quite as many magic items before, but since the forays into The Source we have more stuff than we can take with us and have been converting them to weapons. That aside, are you okay?”

Corvayne blinked. “Sure. Good. Great. Super.”

“Bullshit! You walked into camp with that soldier then immediately ran off. Wick and Hari came back then went off as well, didn't say a word to me or anybody aside to round up bodies. Not to mention you're acting wooden!”

Reaper looked between them. “That's how he always is though...”

Spears turned to the former guard and gave him a look that made him hold his hands up. “Hey, we are following him on a crazy mission, I trust his ass, I'm just telling you how it is, right man? Corvayne?”

Corvayne nodded and gestured out to the dusty plains. “We should offer transport to the rest of the villagers, then we can worry about my stupid life.”

“What happened?” She pleaded, but Corvayne shook his head, and Spears backed off and took a deep breath inwards, then blew floating bubbles of herself out of a cheek, looking frustrated. Corvayne ended up wondering the whole ride out if that hurt Spears to do that.

Getting out to the refugees was fast, as Spears had been trained on bikes like the ones they had made and Reaper, well, he was the sort of guy who would always say 'Heck YEAH' to a flying motorbike.

On the trip back they had to slow down as almost every villager they picked up had an adverse response to bikes, even ones who seemed pretty shell shocked would start yelling and panicking when Corvayne had them going over a hundred miles per hour or lifted them more than thirty feet above the plains, despite being higher running less risks of hitting the few things on the plains.

Each trip took fifteen minutes there and thirty back, and during the third trip to get Princess Bell and the villagers belongings Corvayne spotted the soldiers he had assisted across the bridge. They were flopped out in the dirt and Corvayne guessed they probably pushed themselves to get the the bridge. Once they were rested he guessed it would take the men two days to jog to camp, three or four for the nearest settlement. Given that a few of them looked like they had ran until they were sick he talked himself into helping them out too, once he took care of his original objective in picking up the villagers.

Corvayne picked up the Princess first, as she had been waiting out with the pile of random things the villagers had taken, mostly farm equipment stained with blood from doubling as weapons, a few keepsakes, and maybe a few items that would help them survive if the High Plains had game to trap or wood to burn.

Bell got on with Corvayne, putting her arms around him but staying silent. Looking back, he saw Spears wink a slime sculpted eye at him. He frowned a little, but cleared his throat to address her and Reaper-of-Fish.

“We are going to pick those soldiers up too and try to get them enough food to march across the high plains rather than leave them to try it without anything on them.”

He flew over with Bell to speak with them, and Corvayne saw the exact set of emotions play on more than a few faces in the same order. First, wariness as he drove near them, then recognition that he was the person who saved them and destroyed the bridge, then noticing he had a passenger, then squinting, then eyes widening, then narrowing again because they didn't believe what they saw and they had to look again.

“All of you!” Bell snapped.

Corvayne's sharp ears heard someone ask a soldier next to him. “Is that the 'White Elephant Princess'?”

Bell thankfully didn't hear, as she was thinking of what to say, actually closing her eye and moving her mouth a few times before they snapped open and she forced herself to look confident and determined.

“Today, you are heroes. I see seventeen men and seventeen charges that you carried with you, even in the face of forces about to cut you down, you were ready to complete the mission you were given.”

The ones who knew her, and knew her reputation, were identifiable now because they looked extremely confused. Corvayne got it, because he was also waiting for Bell to really put her foot in her mouth even as part of him was hoping she'd nail the landing.

“I can only hope when my time comes, I can do as much for our empire as you would have done today. Today, when you were ready to lay your lives down to protect your homes and families. We have given the empire extra time to prepare. Extra time to repel the invaders we face.”

One stepped forward. “Your highness, I have bad news. Your brother, Prince Telick, has fallen. The wall is lost...”

Bell nodded. “Do not lose hope. The Empire will live if even a single citizen remains. We will prevail.”

The men stood straighter, and Corvayne found himself raising an eyebrow. He REALLY needed to figure out what the hell had happened to her while he was gone. First though, he needed to ferry some people to camp, get them fed, and decide how much blood he was willing to bleed for Bell's empire.

The sky was starting to darken and cold winds were blowing by the time they finished moving the soldiers and reusing some of the prisoner's tents to make a camp between Corvayne's and the truck. It looked like Gary and Shallee had already started the refugees on converting one of the tents they had made for eating outside into a space for sleeping.

Bell raised her chin, both assisting in the efforts to set up partitions in the tent and acting like she was in charge, which was at least more in line with how Corvayne saw her persona, but instead of disgusting the men who had really put their lives on the line, it seemed to boost them to see her surveying them looking aloof while sometimes nodding as if she was entirely pleased watching them accept sleeping rolls and discussing with Shallee how they could get food and water from Bell's allies.

Corvayne meanwhile now had extra mouths to feed, and supposed he would need to bother everyone coming out of the tower to hunt for even more meat and whatever other foodstuff they could drag out of The Source until they were in a position to send both groups on their way.

All these thoughts of how to handle logistics were cast aside when Bell put a hand on his shoulder. When he looked at her she actually looked timid, but still gestured back to their tents. Once they were at the far camp, she threw herself on the ground, fully in the dirt.

“Please help me. I beg you, even just a week... buy my Empire time to defend itself!”