Corvayne hopped off Lady Blood Claw's bike as she skidded to a stop before the stone doors at the base of the Palace's cliff, splashing a small puddle as he turned to get Bell from Brines. They unbundled her gently, Brines keeping his healing aura on the entire ride back. Corvayne looked at her body, creased with scars where the blow back from Diamond being attached had seared her, then up at the moon, having shifted from a glittering ball the size of a quarter to larger then his fist, visible and gleaming in the sun. When Corvayne squinted, he could see faint whisps of thorny black, wreathed around the incoming celestial body like squirming worms.

Corvayne was betting on the dungeon under the palace being the best place to try to get at Diamond and stop her. The guards were trying to get in his way the moment he turned around, weapons crossed. Corvayne was considering exactly how to deal with them when Brines stepped forward.

"Let me try."

Nyx snorted. "Jimmy you don't speak the language."

"Greetings. Currently, the moon is falling and may doom your world. There's a secret portal behind you, we're going to open it up. I suggest you tell your friends then get your family."

The guard sneered. "A pathetic attempt by a-"

Nyxion strode up and punched one, then shrunk and expanded his energy shield to hammer the other into the side of the archway, knocking him out. There was a single laugh from Seru, who clapped twice.

"We don't have time to convince them." Nyx said, shaking his hand. "Also, tell Bell to hire guards with softer chins."

“I could have lured them away,” Seru said, “Or helped you knock them out.” She crouched by them and used [Sleeper Hold] on both.

Corvayne thought about the party. "We need someone to get this empire's ass in gear, and get Undine and Hylal down here, and Seru... wasn't Kirae in town?... and I guess Tutu."

Seru took a deep breath. “I'll get Kirae to rally whatever contacts she's made, supposedly there's a trading company that some relative of hers worked for.”

“Do you need me to-”

Seru laughed and pulled out a silver 20 sided die, then cast it on the ground. It evaporated, and she pointed. “Gygax himself will railroad me to her, then back to you. Keep Nyx safe.”

Spears wiggled and dismounted from Corvayne's shoulder. "Let me find Undine, and have her help gather everyone left in town and convince them to follow you. I'll need a general location."

Corvayne nodded, then with Compass pointed as best he could. “You might have to ask around for her, but I think she's by the rooms we were in.”

He grabbed the squirming protoplasm with a shadow-limb before she could run away, and pulled her to his head then pressed his lips to her. Spears as always was warm and soft, and the surface turned to a pair of lips for a moment before she shifted into the form of a foot tall girl standing in his shadow hand. “Aww, Corvayne.”

“Don't linger.” He took her into two shadowy hands and she understood, forming a literal basketball. He hurled her up at the balcony, using a bit of gravity to get her to the right spot. Or close enough. She splatted somewhere on a wall above one of the guest rooms but reformed into what he thought looked like a thumbs up before flowing down and vanishing from sight.

He turned to his remaining allies. “I need someone to go to Wick and crew and get them into the Source.”

Lady Blood Claw slapped his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “I'll go.” Her skin turned white a moment, and Corvayne saw her eyes shift to wine colored as she gave him a lopsided smile. “Don't give me that dumb look. You have your compass, even if we fuck up you'll find your way back to us.” A moment later, she flipped herself gray and hopped back on her Bike. “Nyx, you are in charge of making sure he doesn't do anything stupid.”

Nyx saluted. “Got it. Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid, alone.”

She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.” She got back on her bike, and looked back at Corvayne once before turning and zipping off into the air, faint hum of the engines cutting off as her bike's air shield reformed.

“Nyx, Brines. You guys ready?”

Brines gulped and nodded. “It can't be worse then the last place.”

“If I'm going to get distracted by a wild goose chase away from claiming my rightful place on the throne of our galactic empire, I'd damn well be ready for it. What's going to top doing a dungeon run racing ahead of a moon?”

Corvayne took Bell's hand, warm compared to the spring air but limp. He pressed it to the cold stone seal that bound both halves of the entrance together, and there was the faintest glow in the stone before a grinding noise alerted anyone with ears in a mile that the door was opening. Reams of dust clattered to the ground and revealed a cavern with faintly glowing lights, at least fifty feet tall and sloped slightly downwards.

Brines cleared his throat. “I can carry her, and we need both your hands open if you have to fight.”

Corvayne nodded, and helped prop her back on Brine's back. He used rope to help tie her to him. “You know, honestly? You feel a lot more solid since you left with me. I know Bearer dragged you into this...”

Brines smiled. “Thanks, but I mean, it's because I'm scared of trying to cut it on my own, even with Grunt, and if I seem confident it's because I'm getting better at hiding I'm scared shitless. Why are we fighting giant robots? Why is the moon coming for us? Are we going to have to hurt more guards?”

Nyxion rolled his eyes. “All of it because we broke something or did something in the ruins that set her off. Or our timing was just terrible. We don't know. We'll have to ask Diamond herself when we kick her ass and uncurse her.”

The large ramp ended in another large door, this one sealed with what looked like bands of glowing white crystal. The hewn stone had more hints of bricks added afterwards, though the door itself felt like it had been a feature before. The brickwork formed passages off to the side, and his compass was pointing him through the right one into a dusty stone passage. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a can of obnoxiously yellow spray paint, then drew an arrow the direction he was going.

He wasn't four steps into the hall before the first trap. He heard a click and used [[Agility]] to move as fast as he could back to Brines. Nyxion stepped forward and there were flashes of silver as waves of arrows slammed into him.

“The damn thing is trapped.” Nyx said, his barrier shimmering after nearly a hundred projectiles hit it.

Brines switched to a magic restoring aura, and after a few seconds Nyx's shield was back to a solid color, in this case a faint blue aura around him that gently intersected the walls.

“Don't leave healing off too long, I'm worred about Bell.”

“Me too, since she's the key to this place. How did you get out?”

Corvayne shrugged. “It must let folks out, and it's possible the traps can tell if your coming or going.”

Brines thought about it. “Maybe it was added later?”

“They sealed this off, so it's possible. I guess look for places where the stone work isn't quite the same.”

Corvayne spotted the next trap in a floorless room where there was a bridge over another bridge, and this time had the group shuffle back out of the room then launch with [Expert Throw] Argyle's staff at it, triggering the trap with the heavy hunk of indestructible metal. A huge weight fell, destroying the bridge before falling down into the dark below. Nyx floated, and Corvayne used Gravity to let Brines make the jump.

“I'll say Corvayne, the mom weighs more, but at least she's not stuffed with down.”

Nyxion rolled his eyes. “Right. Must be rough.”

Corvayne made a motion for silence. He turned and looked behind them, but the sense of something wrong was gone.

“We might have someone following us.”

Nyxion slid to the back. “Sure it's not Spider?”

“No. It also might just be a warriors instinct thing going off.”

Brines gulped. “So it might be someone started following us? Because in general Corvayne when you get a gut feeling, it tends to be important.”

They moved carefully then. “You sure you don't want me in front?” Nyxion asked.

“I'm worried one of these is going to be a deadfall. If that happens, your shield won't stop you from getting crushed.” He didn't need to say that an ambush usually was one very strong attack, and if anything that was what shields were really made for.

The stonework changed from the sort of redish brick he associated with the city's architecture to gray, interlaced with what looked like faded lights, flickering in the dark. He didn't dare touch them, knowing he was likely to get either a shock or rash or burn. He glanced back at Bell, thinking about how if she was getting her inherent power back, it might hurt him to touch her.

Like that, he was thinking about Wick, and his gut twisted. He couldn't get distracted, and start second guessing what it had meant. He wouldn't give up on Bell. He wanted to be... better then Wick and Hari had been.

“Nyx, sometimes I envy you.” Corvayne said as he tried to set off a trap with his staff again and found that the device has broken, two rusted axe blades sort of stumbling out of the wall as the spring had broken a long time ago.

“That's not right Corvayne. You should envy me all the time.” He was floating backwards, only occasionally looking back to make sure that he was on course.

The traps let up not long after that, with the remainder of the trip being through what looked and smelled like tombs. The latent lights left the many alcoves on the sides dark, but Corvayne was pretty sure he saw still forms. Probably where royalty was interred, as he caught the faint glimmer of treasures on the wrapped forms. He wasn't going to distract either of his allies. Not that he thought Brines might get sidetracked, as the man was trying to stay exactly in the center of the room to not get any nearer to the dead.

The tombs were silent, and it seemed none of the three wanted to talk. There was one stone door that Corvayne had to shuffle Brines to the front to have Bell's hand open for them, then they were into what Corvayne was sure was the holding area for the dungeon. It was a circular maze, with the compass drawing him through turns and backtracking until he reached the center.

The chamber in the center was large enough for a sort of dias where two gold pillars supported a gold dream catcher, in which a gateway formed. It was glowing with soft white light around a pitch black center, rippling a little as they disturbed the air. Withered husks of flowers and signs of melted candles suggested that at some point, those who had tried to overcome the challenge and failed were mourned.

“Are we still being followed?” Corvayne asked, knowing that from the get-go the only option was to do something stupid.

Corvayne thought about it. “If we are, they are either really good or lost track of us. Spider is that good, but even then I can feel them.”

“There's someone who triggered Diamond waking up... would they be after us?” Brines asked, glancing back over his shoulder.

Nyx snorted. “They'd have to be watching JUST this dungeon.”

“It's possible they were, there's something about the basement of this place that's important. Bells family was asked to guard it, and I don't think it's just because there's a dungeon here. They mentioned a portal. Well, I want to fix Diamond so she doesn't smash this planet flat, then we are going through that gateway to see whats past it.”

“Did you know we needed Bell?”

“I needed someone who needed me. I'd have just blasted my way through the stone if my guess was n't right.”

“What made you think she could open it?”

Corvayne shrugged. “I suspect that completing the dungeon that we did to rescue Hylal, she would get something that let her fulfill her dream.”

“Well, you realize you're in an impossible situation? If she walks out of here and can restore the empire, either your adventure ends or you split.”

Brines groaned. “Please, we can sit down an analyze how BAD our decisions in relationships are AFTER we are in the portal and out of the way of a MOON sized ex girlfriend!”

“I never dated Diamond.”

“That's because a moon sized girl was aiming for a planet sized case of self denial and a black hole of self doubt. She probably loves you as much as Spears or Hari does.” Brines snapped, his voice sounding clipped as he spoke rapidly, and his hair getting a little messed up. “And wipe that smirk off your face Nyx. Everything you do is a deflection or imitation of something. I can only imagine what you'd be like if you weren't friends with Corvayne.”

Nyx snorted. “Attaboy Nyxion!” He slapped the man's shoulder. “Where didja you learn to get a backbone? You could tell your dad off like that.”

“Uh, that's what my dad sounds like when he gets mad.” Brines said, adjusting Bell.

Corvayne bit his lip. “Sorry, I'll get working on fixing the whole impending destruction of this planet.”

Before Brines could drag him into worrying about himself, he stepped through the gate. He stepped out into a sort of ornate tiled room, the walls made of either metal or very dark wood, wrapped with baroque over detailed filigree. The top of the room was open, and looked out into the new environment. To Corvayne, it looked like a huge brass and gold machines on titanic brass shelves, decked out in gears with parts and shelves shifting. It looked like a complicated puzzle box, something fit for an emperor in dazzling arrays of gold gears, orange tiles, red-brown wood cases for lanterns, all glowing reds and white, and all of it catching rainbows as mirrors shifted, directing and re-directing beams of what looked to be solid white light, concentrated to the point where it formed white lines in the controlled chaos.

One of those beams landed near him and bounced off a mirror into the dungeon, splitting what looked like a bridge into two seperate paths. Corvayne's skin started to itch and he was not even in the direct beam. He glanced back to see that it was a one-way door on top of everything. All he could do was sigh.

“Lasers. Why did it have to be lasers?”