The southern defense line was built around a section of wall that Corvayne though looked like a rough draft of some baroque dream of a wall, with layers of brass or gold filigree layered on curved bricks with red and purple hues that gave one an impression of a wave, all flanking and housing large white jewels that made him think of unblinking eyes. The bulging jewels covering most of the structure at random angles, dark optical centers a black hole that no doubt housed some sort of laser system. The whole thing seemed to rise a hundred feet out of the pastures around it. Corvayne could see the road to the southern coast passing through one of the very few circular passages through the wall. A flock of sheep passing briefly overpowered the faint hum that he had heard and felt for miles, and when the mid-day sun flashed light off one of the lenses it made Corvayne's face itch.

He didn't want to retreat down the grassy hill they had set the bikes down on, so he instead tried to use his shadow hand to block it. The light turned his black liquid limb into swiss cheese and moments later he resumed getting badly sun burnt by the imperial defenses when they were turned off.

Lady Blood Claw put her binoculars away and produced a half full bottle of "IP 50 'Creme Solaire – Noix de Coco'. No lies there - it definitely smelled like coconut sunscreen and helped alleviate the itchy feeling, if not his eyes getting dry after being hit with another flash of light, this time some mirror in the system being adjusted. He pulled his cape over him after handing LBC her bottle back.

"You'll never get a tan like mine doing that." She said in a dry tone. She had bright banded colors which he had flagged as amused. He was pretty sure [[Understanding]] and [[Unity]] were teaching him to read her even better.

He felt a tug on his cloak, and saw Bell touching it. "It shimmers with so many colors..." She said. Unlike him, who was sporting scabs from where her nails (claws) had found him, the only sign of their exertions was a slight flush when he met her eyes. This prompted some tittering from Spears, who was now wrapped around Bell's shoulders. He reached out and gave her a little squeeze, taking a moment to distract himself from the incoming monster with thoughts of going on a hunting date with her.

Speaking of distractions, Seru was there, geared up with a lot of red metal accessories. Corvayne could see she was still wearing the jacket they had found in the house, but was decked out in black and red. She turned away from Corvayne, no doubt to bother Nyxion who was scanning the horizon.

In the back, Brines was nearly halfway down the hill. Corvayne glanced back. “You sure you don't want to get a better view?”

“It blew up a mountain. No!” Brines held his hands up.

Corvayne felt his eyebrow rising. “So what difference is the hill going to make?”

Brines gestured. “It's... uh, it's better then nothing!”

Nyx whistled, and everyone quieted and looked at the horizon, seeing now something starting to appear. It started as shimmering, something like a distant body of water catching the sun. Everyone tensed....

Then a few minutes passed... Spears broke a quiet of the group watching a glittering mountain lumbering into view. “Diamond is slow as hell.”

Nyx turned around. “You going to try to catch her after the attack?”

“Of course.” Corvayne stepped back and got on his bike. It was more likely he was going to watch a section of wall get counter-blasted into smithereens, but he wanted to try to get to Diamond if the attack worked.

Bell jumped on behind him before he could take off, accidentally kicking him with the side of her boot as she wobbled into place. “I demand a front seat view.”

Spears added, “And I'll drive!”

There was some fussing behind him as the girls decided between living (having Spears operate the goblin-made non standard hovercraft) and dying (having Bell drive), settled with some whispering and jostling that Corvayne heard clearly 'Missile Launcher' and did not interject himself between his now pair of girlfriends. It was odd that he could see men working on the wall off to one side, some of them standing grimly at the horizon, and beside the wall, birds were singing and it was bright and sunny, if a little cold.

He flicked the shield on and darted off to a spot near a large valley that Diamond was entering. This close he could see flocks of birds erupting away from the tremendous thump when one of her feet came down and she started raising the next. The noise was loud enough to be audible through the bikes shielding.

The monster left titanic footprints in it's wake, and Corvayne saw evidence that at least one cottage had taken a direct hit from her glittering clawed legs. In sunlight every part of her gleamed and glittered. He was pretty sure she was a solid thousand feet tall. Corvayne put his vehicle in a holding pattern, keeping a mile between him and the titanic form, but taking a binocular to see if there were hints of thorns in in her chest.

Of course, Spears started prodding him. “My clear boobs not enough?” She started forming a breast, but Corvayne could hear a waver in her voice.

“I love your body, and don't worry. If not today, then some day soon we will save her.”

Bell poked him. “What about the city it's going to crush?”

“I think most of them can outrun her.”

He had been briefed by Bell on the ride over that the emperor himself would not stay for longer then needed to quickly aim and activate the wall, a feat of teleportation from high level wizards. Royal Guards were scouring the building for both magic items and for signs of mundane tampering, someone having done their homework over how the Raven had taken a prince out with mundane explosives.

“How accurate is your dad, Bell?”

“He is not my dad, he is the emperor.”

“Okay. How accurate is he?”

“He's still a high level warrior, and I've heard our family gets abilities to help us use the weapons as long as the spark is there.” A hint of bitterness crept into her voice.

“Right....” Corvayne reversed a few hundred feet.

“You need not do that! The wall helps them aim!”

Spears took a deep breath. “So what's the chance we get fried by a laser when he misses?”

“It's larger then a barn. He can probably hit it.” Corvayne offered.

“We've shot dragons out of the air with it!” Bell shouted, then took a deep breath. “He will hit it. It will work.”

Corvayne saw something like a shimmering meteor come flying at him and on instinct he grabbed Bell and Spears and threw them down off the bike to cover. He expected something to cleave the mountain but instead something solid started bumping into him, rolling him back.

He got to his feet and saw the flashing disk that had guided him a few times. The UFO was again pushing him to go somewhere, this time trying to bump him back around the rise they were on. It moved forward and motioned for them to follow as it quickly dashed behind a hill, then came back.

His shadow hands started to pick Spears up as soon as he saw and understood what the UFO was doing, so he grabbed Bell with his real hand.

She shot to her feet, hurrying ahead of him. “Not this time! I refuse the potato sack carry!”

The disk had spun around to keep bumping him, acting like an aggressive dog. Spears cried out. “Why are we running now?”

“It tried to get us to prevent this weapon from reviving, so it probably knows something bad is about to happen. Disk! Do you hear me? Go warn my friends!”

It paused, and Corvayne's shadow hands slithered into view, all four making Grunt-esque signs. The disk then turned and blasted through a tree, making a skipping motion for a moment before vanishing. [[Understanding]] connected the kinship his ability with a mind of it's own had...

Corvayne tugged Bells hand and wrapped Spears around his neck, her warm goo wiggling. “Wait, you don't think that beam of light is going to...”

Bell was huffing. “There's no way! Mirrors and glass don't bounce the beam...”

Corvayne had his teeth clenched, more concerned with trying to get as much rock between him and glittering form of Diamonds then actually explaining himself. “It's her, she's trying to warn us!”

Corvayne could feel the energy in the air being pulled into something. Perhaps it was one of those things like how he felt mana. His skin got goosebumps as the air temperature dropped, and he could see the clouds starting to swirl as energy started rushing into something distant. Even Bell looked a little pale. There was a low hum and every inch of Corvayne felt terror overwhelming him, the wrongness of the energy goading him forward. Whatever the weapon that the Raven had been using did, it was like a child's toy before what the Emperor was going to unleash.

He focused and used [[Agility]] and his Gravity power, pulling Bell into a princess carry then moving as fast as his mind could keep his legs landing on flat spots, moving into a ravine he hoped would block what was happening. The energy kept building, the sky noticeably darkening as something bright caught the tops of the ridge.

He pushed them into a crevice and pulled out a bunch of random junk to try to plug the hole, then weaved shadow around it and switched to [[Vitality]] and reversed Gravity, giving him and Bell weight. A second later something like a ten ton Sand Titan hit him in the gut. He felt his eardrums rupture and mend themselves, the sound of nearby hills and mountains getting vaporized and leveled cutting out when they burst again. Then the same force attacked his eyes, with no force but heat that felt like being kicked, the light so strong he could see for a moment Diamond's form through rock, as impossible as it should be, every inch of him blistering and popping. Through the pain, he could see Bell pushing something at his face, aided by Spears who had wrapped herself around the princess.

He tasted chocolate and fire and broken glass and blood, then the light from Diamond dimmed, and everything was black a moment, but he didn't dare relax, instead he dug into his ring, looking for potions, downing them and pushing some to Bell. He found one scroll that might help, warding, and cast it deaf, causing a faint gold light to surround them. The next moment there was light slicing through parts of the rock, elemental lasers leaving trails of white rock as they lanced everything, a million needles. He moved as fast as he could putting his back and as much shadow material between him and the wall.

It did nothing, as his darkness was weak and the light was some ultra powerful distillation of the element. His armor blasted a sphere of water which only helped for a moment. Through his eyelids he could see white flickers of fire where light energy was erupting, leaving white lines of salt in the rocks. He was pretty sure he could see Bell screaming and trying to cover her face. He just wanted to stop, to scream, but he saw Spears was trying to form a full wrap of the woman. He had to be better. Corvayne pushed through the pain and willed himself to link [[Vitality]] and [[Unity]].

There was a click as his back ejected black spines, more and more black crystal flowing out of him and forming a wall as the rays kept sweeping past, their gentle motion betrayed as he watched them carve out chunks of rock then whittling them down to pile of dust the next beam would blast away.

He saw salt creeping up Bell's body where part of her shoulder had been cut off, and one of her hands was missing. [[Understanding]] kept pushing that if he did nothing, she would die. He grabbed a black crystal from his own body and jammed it into her wound, and the blood flowed into it then drew it in. She writhed in pain, but he could see it was repelling the effect turning her into salt. Why not? He tried to find small needles, ignoring the energy rays blasting around him, and the itchy feeling he got breathing in light aspected dust.

He pushed potions into her mouth, trying to make sure her head was close to him. When she started to slow down he shook her. “Drink! Drink!”

[[Unity]] pushed her. Don't die. His own thoughts were of his friends, twisted and dead around Argyle's staff. Seeing him go after Wick.

Rocks fell on her legs, but there was enough of a black crystal shell that Corvayne could just ignore them. He could fix her legs later, he needed to keep her core alive.

He felt his own strength waning, and he desperately gripped spike after spike, feeding them into her wounds.

“Corvayne! Stop! She can't take anymore... You need to fix yourself!” Spears cried out.

He looked and saw that white and black veins were warring in Bell's body. His own body looked like Lady Blood Claw doing a zebra impression smeared with blood, bright red. [[Unity]] told him that Bell's spark was fading.

He gently pushed Spear's psudopod away. “Help... keep pushing... potions...”

He pulled out one of the original energy drink potions the Tower had given him. He needed more tools. Tools?

He pulled out a chunk of wood, and reached into his arm to pull a black shard out. He could see Bell twitching, breathing in shuddering gasps with too long between them. He started carving her. “Lythandies, please make us whole. I'm not ready to lose my friends again.”

He must have blanked out, because it felt like a figure of him carrying Bell over his shoulder sprung from the wood in a moment. The carved figurine somehow capturing her glare, an effect Corvayne had been sure he wasn't able to do on his own. As he set it down, he felt it. Just a little hint of power, and instinct. No, he had read it. The summoning book. He took his bloody fingers, and drew on the ground. Around the statue, little runes.

He placed a bit of the black crystal in the circle too. Another offering. A moment later, there was a sort of clicking feeling in his soul, and the circle expanded. Roots crept out of the ground, their touch bringing life to the circle in plush patches of grass and creeping ferns and moss. The life sprouting from within the circle withered outside it's lines, but a tree slithered it's way out of the ground then produced a single teal fruit, white splotches forming a crude Hammer of Lythandies.

He reached for it, then hesitated. [[Understanding]] pulled from half remembered conversations between Mosh and Icariii. Words about expectations, borrowed power, the investment of faith in deities who revealed themselves in miracles. Prices for everything. He didn't know if his friends had made bargains to her.

[[Unity]] on the other hand made him feel that this was... a trade he could take. The tree, the smallest fragment of a much larger being, was accepting something or paying him for something.

Two conflicting ideas, but Bell's shuddering breaths falling still a little too long before she gasped again decided for him. Lythandies wanted to build things up, not tear people down.

He took it, pulled Bell's mouth open, and crushed the fruit, it's juice glowing teal as it flowed into her throat. Color returned to parts of her immediately, but she didn't move, and all he could do was wait in gently falling ash.