Corvayne woke to the expected spikes of pain and blipping of a heart rate monitor. It was a nice white room, thought most of the air was cool. He felt a bit of warmth hitting him from a space heater someone had set up near the bed. The bed he was stained red and he could feel a few small knife shards poking his back. The top cover was pretty clean but his hands had dried blood on them, so he tried his best to work on getting them pulled back without making a mess. There was a window letting light in, and he could see a tree with vibrant orange leaves out of it. There were a few milk crates in the room full of black shining shards, and he could see that the back of the bed had been blasted with a layer of black crystal as well.

He saw a woman sitting in a chair by his side, and it took him a moment to recognize June. If only because she was better dressed then before and was wearing the magic headband that gave her horns. Moshes lover and right hand woman and former resident of the third floor of the Tower had a green robe that had crystalline green colors, and he noticed that what he thought were black gloves were actually some sort of hexagonal subdermal implant.

"Hey." he croaked out.

She stopped what she was reading and looked up, then smiled a little. "Hello Corvayne. I'll let the others know you came to."

He looked about the room, which now he was fairly sure was in a hospital somewhere in River Run. There was a bit of dust on the window sill and there was a deep quiet in the room save for June unbuttoning her purse. His extra senses could feel his little patch of house and his friends and family in various directions. "How long was I out this time?"

She spoke at the same time as pulling out a phone and tapping with one finger at a speed that suggested she had been putting lots of points into her dexterity. "Four weeks, but it was much less violent fault in your power. At no point where you spawning tubs of extra organs. You did have some sub tremors after you stabilized, so you've been resting at this mostly empty ward for the last three and a half weeks. We took turns watching you, with Sky Knights, Assassins, Royal Mages and the Order of Lythandies providing assistance to prevent snooping."

He could feel a bit of anger which told him that there had been snooping of some sort. "Empire for the last two?"

"Mosh has had fortune favor him with allies." She said, her inflection still not quite as varied as Corvayne was used to. He did feel [[Unity]] signaling warm feelings from the Tower Folk turned crafter even if her voice was subdued. "I sent the message to everyone, but some people are off on missions. Preshe, Spears, and Lady Blood Claw should be here soon with Gylwin."

"His allies wouldn't happen to be high school girls who knew Preshe?"

She thinks. "I am not sure of their ages. They tend to wear heavy armor. I am sorry."

"No. I'm sorry for taking up your time. A month." He would owe Bell and Spears and Preshe for worrying them. Maybe LBC as well since she'd likely have to keep the others together. Well, two of them. Spears-Like-Water was tough and had seen him injured before far worse on hunts, even stoically dragging him back when he was on the brink of death with nary an emotion passing her face, so he expected that she probably stepped up and helped keep Bell and Preshe from worrying.

He was about to ask June for water when he heard sobbing and registered the door to his room bursting open before something blue hit the bed like a blubbering cruise missile.

Spears knocked a few of the knives he had been expunged under him into his back, but he was in [[Vitality]] so he was more concerned with how he was currently winded rather then little things like bleeding more.

"You got hurt and kept exploding and didn't wake up and me and Bell and Preshe and Hylal and Lady were all worried!"

It was word salad as his slime girlfriend kept talking while Corvayne tried to hit himself with a Mend to get his lungs to fill again.

"Spears, It's okay,” He weezed, “I'll be up and at em in no time."

He looked up and saw Preshe looking timidly in, then rushing to the bed and hugging him and Spears. Bell joined the dog pile a moment later, growling at him, "You ignorant pig farmer with a spear, I can't let you go on a simple errand without you dying or nearly dying!"

"Sorry honey. Can you ease up? There's crystal shards under my back."

Some of the weight was removed from Corvayne before Hylal did a flawless double knee impact into him, sending him back to lying flat on the sharp crystals that coated the bedding under him.

"CORVAYNE DAD!"

He was happy to see her too.

There was a little bit of administrative business for extracting him from the hospital, some of it Leigue and Mister I clearing him with the System's version of a clean bill of health.

The elf had switched up his army gear for a black and white long sleeved shirt under a winter vest. It showed off that the elf appeared to have no muscle, despite Corvayne knowing that the man had a hybrid info/combat class that almost assuredly meant he could lift a car. Mister I, on the other hand, was wearing ornate red robes with a camo pattern on the hems and a gold thread embroidered piece of cartoon meat on his back.

Leigue did an ID on Corvayne and did not summon any death spikes out of him. The information he learned from his mindscape was there.

“We can have a meeting to discuss what you've revealed, but it seems the common theme is to not push pacts up too far.”

Corvayne sighed. “I may also stop on [[Unity]]. As useful as it is, I'm worried about any sort of ability that influences people's minds.”

June looked at her window. “I feel you should keep putting points into it up to forty five. It is remarkable much it improves teamwork, skill sharing, and bonding time.”

Corvayne got a spike of lust from June that suggested she had very much taken advantage of the last one, but he shook his head. “If I get better information about pacts, I'll consider it. Understanding and Growth seem like they are going to help me undo all the damage these curses did. I will not risk raising the high danger pacts any more.”

Spears tapped her foot on the ground. “If you are going to fight the Magus, you should at least consider getting tools that operate on his level. He turned half of the Watchers against the other half. That's part of why we haven't seen more then... one of our own.”

Bell sat down on the bed. “I trust your decision. However, if you get into a situation with an additional curse that does something like force betrayal, it would be more then foolish to not counter it with [[Unity]].”

Corvayne did not want to think what would happen after he removed said curse in the situation she described. “I think it's less relevant then we are making it. The curse information suggests to me I can remove one of the effects on me by simply not using any power of mine for a certain number of weeks.”

Spears looked unhappy at that, her slime body darkening. “We were supposed to go hunting together before the explosion.”

Corvayne nodded. “I will do that. I need to determine what resets the timer before I try to completely stop using my abilities. I honestly would not be surprised if I started moving to a supporting role for a while. With everyone else shooting up in levels and me being stuck at 31...”

Preshe put her hand on his arm. “I'll keep getting better at essence. I'll help fix you.”

“Thank you, but you three...” He gestured to Hylal, Bell, and Spears. “Don't look at me like I'm crippled. I'm perfectly able to write off a week if I need to use my abilities, it just throws the timer off. It might be good for me, even. A spear moves forward, but it knows when it's arrived.”

Bell sighed. “How are you going to deal with getting antsy when you are not fighting or training?”

“Who said I'd stop? I'd change my focus to exploring. We are missing info from the bar. We don't know much about Domain aside from when I got it from mowing the lawn the first time. I have a theory on artifacts but it's [[Understanding]] pushing what I suspect are hints at me. I'm going to wrangle everyone to help me on that front.”

Leigue started to pull out a cigarette and June plucked it from him just as smoothly. He gave her an unhappy look which she returned with a cold one.

“You cannot smoke in here sir.” She said simply.

The elf bit his lip then turned to Corvayne, fishing in his pocket for a piece of pocky that he dangled from his lips. “What's your theory?”

“That we've found silver chests before, and Artifacts are loot based. I think the 1/3 on my Status might have been that orb Hari couldn't identify that merged into me. The Tower works on lots of axis, but there's been copper chests and silver ones. I want to see if these floors have Gold Chests and if those are the primary way to build artifacts.”

The man smirked. “I would say those chests existing are not much of a secret. If one wanted to know, eh, what a floors conditions are, or perhaps where you can find them after meeting said conditions, and when they were last touched? Those are often touchier. Wick had your librarian give your merchant a whole milk crate of black crystals and orders to head to the market and get tools that might help explore hostile areas, so you may have more luck then most.”

Bell cleared her throat. “You are going to try to go into dangerous places while not having your slow falling power as a backup? Or trying NOT to use it? Are you so foolish to think you can fight without any powers?”

He tried switching to [[Agility]] and saw [602328] jump back up to [604800]. It did not change [48w] next to it.

He tried Gravity. [604800]

He did a very light [Cross Skill: Thrust] using his toe on the end of the bed. There was a thump and [604800] popped up.

Corvayne tried to use [Nerve Pinch] on the same spot and saw the number jump to [604800].

Using his storage ring to store then return a pillow left the timer ticking down. [604794]. Reaching over to his spear didn't cause the timer to reset either, even though he could feel something in it connect with his skills.

“Bell, I'm sure I can, I just need to get Mosh's help with a few things.”