He woke with less than a start. A bird had landed on his hat, then fluttered off after two little hops. The rhythmic clomping of hooves and the sounds of swaying of grass had lulled Corvayne into napping in the saddle. His painted horse hadn't been bothered it seemed, as he was trotting along at a steady pace, following Spears' horse that was a floor 43 hybrid. It was larger and had cow spots, suggesting that it was in some way related to Bessie. Spears had taken a cowboy hat but otherwise was dressed as he was in her Watchers cloak with black and brown clothes. Behind her on the saddle was one of ten beasts they had downed. Spears herself had been looking back, and with a giggled turned back to leading them home.

  "Good horse. I'll paint you an apple later."

  It whinnied in delight. It could eat normal food but a canvas of fresh hay and apples was it's favorite.

  Off to the side, Corvayne could see the grass give way to reeds then Greencarpet Lake. Hulking ruins of what looked like metal buildings, ships, and giant robots broke up the monotony of green: The lake's crystal clear waters were hidden under a 'Named Monster' that was a piece of duckweed that could clone itself. The scent of mint mingled on the breeze with grass and rust. The sunlight felt nice as he was a little damp: Spears had wanted to wash the blood off from the hunt and used it as an excuse to go skinny dipping.

  Clearly she had pulled some of his thoughts through the bond because she turned and wiggled her eyebrows at him. The idea of having a 'spear date' turned out nice. It was as close to going back and changing his own past as they could get.

  She slowed her mount down. "When I'm climbing, I want you to be nice to Bell."

  "I'm always nice to her. I try at least." She had been volatile since they left the sect, even though she had spent more time with Rio than he did over the last two months. Since he had insisted they hit the range and practice shooting together, she had been much sweeter. They even had a little getaway planned, just a couple days riding in [Rusty Outback F20] which was a door over and was blessed by upside down canyons as water fell upwards on the floor. Crystal formations in the winding rivers on the ceiling created beautiful patterns at night, and watching sunset cross from floor to ceiling was breathtaking.

  He couldn't take all the credit: Bell's mood had lifted because her daughter was on the way, along with the rest of their missing friends.

  The sound of hammering on wood came before the new sect grounds came into view. Numerous new trucks could be seen, Mosh having worked to replace a huge number of vehicles left behind with floating devices able to carry trees from far off forests on the floor. Some long haul versions were parked, having made three trips to other cities on floor. Corvayne passed the flattened corridor that had been trimmed to make the trip smoother. In the distance, he could see one of the low mountains had a line cut halfway into the brush.

  [[Organization]] (or his own restlessness at not going out on expeditions) had helped him retain some of the plans that Dusky had made to connect with tower roads. Critical for their plans to trade without pulling more concessions from the Three Kings. The sect had been given parts of the floor as an agreement for relinquishing their 43rd floor home. While many of the Cowtivators knew he had done something to bring their sect leader back, many also glared at Corvayne for pushing Rio and Dusky to give up their homes. As if there wasn't a ground war being fought over their home by two forces already.

  That said, he saw shrines to Lythandies, molded out of wood by Dusky himself. With the aid of the goddesses blessings, a city of wood and stone was growing near Greencarpet. The center of which was a tree that had already reached twenty feet.

  It would likely be a twin of the one the hotel had been built around, as Corvayne had helped summon a set of Lythandies's seeds. Just as they had once made Bell whole when she would have perished, they seemed to be able to mend the lumber placed onto them, regrowing it to shape it into a living building. Already Corvayne could see the foundation of a large clan hall being laid down at it's roots, and the buildings were being connected via boards to have the roots spread far.

  Corvayne sort of wanted to keep going but Spears slowed her mount and Corvayne could see Dusky stop what he was doing to walk over. A three foot tall tree floating on a rock followed him: Corvayne had some inkling that it was an elemental summoned by some of his spells that would expend itself to boost life and earth magic.

  “Well met brother. Did your hunt go well?”

  He wondered if they had spies trailing him, or perhaps Spears just told him. She didn't give away anything through their [[Unity]] bond and he wasn't going to ask.

  “We culled the blinking boar population by the white fountain. It's not as exciting as going out on the dunes was... but a lot safer.” Not that he was ever excited to fight quill horrors and bomblet beetles. He was guessing that stepping outside the wall of their village would have been like wandering out onto floor 35 of the tower.

  “Well, I had heard your other friends are on their way here. If they are as impressive as the ones you are traveling with, I think soon you will have your own sect to manage.”

  Corvayne knew just how much paperwork that would entail. A week ago he had brought dinner to Rio and was roped into sitting on her bed watching her try to sort out how they were going to split what few resources they had brought with them between the survivors of the sect, including ones trickling in, as well as Neo Nashville civilians settling in nearby cities on the floor, and especially ones who couldn't or wouldn't show up in person to help rebuild the sect.

  It was interesting that she didn't have armor that helped with paperwork aside from gloves, shoes, and a fancy tall bureaucrat hat... which meant she had been sitting at her desk in a nightgown with gear swapping around it. Spears did helpfully suggest that she had asked him to stay because she wanted him to make a move and 'distract her' from it, but she had seemed happy to just talk and gripe to him and sometimes ask him what he thought.

  “Ah, well, perhaps once I'm feeling better and you've completed your trial, we can spar.” He smiled. “No bond brings family together more then shared arms.”

  “True, though I'd rather fight together than compete.” Even if fighting a more magic oriented build might help him understand the tactics better than 'get close', Spears had recently had some sort of boost to her mastery of water and, once he had unlocked his powers, would likely be a good place to match his own abilities against someone who can fight like a magic user.

  “It is interesting to me that our paths, while both upwards in power, diverge in what we want.”

  Corvayne suspected that his brother's whims with the Fistful of Dao sect was made out of a love for the Watchers that he didn't have. Corvayne suspected too that Spears was wistful for the dunes. She had something she wanted to talk about, but was distracting herself or was worried. He stopped himself from touching [[Unity]] and adding a few months on not using powers. She'd tell him when she was ready.

  Their walk over to the inn passed Juggernaut, laying on the side of the road near where the fence that marked the safe zone was. The cargo door was down, and two dogs were laying near it in the grass. Both their mounts preferred the inn's stable, so they waved to June and Mosh whom looked to be setting up for a party. He was sure they missed Varia, whom was coming with the group.

  Given he could still craft, he had spent a lot of time helping Mosh with making tools needed to remodel the floor. He suspected that he'd also be negotiating with the Three Kings once some of the more radical devices started up. Ones that would bore holes into the mountains and flatten sections of land for roads and homes, or that could pierce the layer of the floor they were on to collect resources. Corvayne was interested to learn it was 'lasagna shaped' with five miles between layers average and that the Three Kings had outposts in ten different layers.

  They passed the fence and trotted over to the hotel, only stopping once to let a rare car pass them towards houses on the slope to the lake. The paved road out of town only lead deeper into the Three Kings territory, and the nebulous group had asked them to expand the other way. A few Tower Folk commented they liked the horses and that got them into the stables and parking garage.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  The hotel itself now was growing, with the stables located under an extension that was growing over the last road before the safe zone fence. The garage was under the extension and was made up of branches shaped into arches, forming a vaulted area. Dim orange light from moss mingled with spots where sunlight streamed in between nets of branches. Corvayne felt satisfaction from the creatures as they smelled piles of fresh hay that had been delivered during the walk.

  Of course, for their help there would also be treats and brushing. In Corvayne's case, an actual brush with horse brown paint. He didn't know the calories of a painting of apples, but the horse looked like he was in line with the ones he had seen working in the Sect's stables and that was good enough for him. Spears, on the other hand, was going to have a fat horse if she kept feeding it extra apples, but then again it was some sort of monster variant and might one day grow to be Bessie's size.

  He made a note they needed to make the wooden stables bigger, as easy as getting the pillar to grow. Stepping away from the hay filled area and past a line of hover bikes resting on wooden charging stations, he slowed to replace a blue essence crystal with a fresh one. One blue a week would have been a steep price to keep the bikes charged, but the energy also helped the tree grow and heated the pool. He had some other colors he could plug into the tree, but black crystals were still a little too strong for the young plant.

  The hall out of the garage smelled like sage and chlorine solution, as they still needed mechanical filters to keep the pool clean. Later, the tree might be coaxed to purify the water itself, but as of now they were still on city water and that meant keeping the pool water clean. Floor two was where they had put the kitchen, entangled in roots that became the pillars in the garage below. Local clay had been used in place of white that Corvayne had seen in Cascadia, making the space feel smaller and darker than it really was. A stainless steel freezer door was enshrined in branches. He unloaded the monster bodies into a pile to be butchered later. Lythandies gift also seemed to help with prepping something for cooking, even if it should be frozen solid. He placed them away from the compressor anyway as it would mean they didn't freeze solid before they reunited with their friends.

  Climbing upstairs, floor three had broad windows that let them look out at the growing pool deck. On the other side, the door to the ballroom showed light playing on the ornate room. Tables had been set up in there, a more ornate feast planned when the Three Kings representatives arrived to trade books for fists fulls of crystals. No '10,000 Paths' which was an unknown book, but a lot of other things that he planned to pool with everything Dot, the librarian, had uncovered to try to build a better idea of how they could use the resources of the Tower.

  Corvayne had some things he had put together from the local library related to his own build, and they were laid out on the fourth floor meeting room, which had become his office. Spears wanted to tug him towards a hot shower and maybe the bedroom for a quick break before dinner, but he slowed down to see if Bell or Gylwin was in. Nope, which meant they were probably out and about either training or, in Gylwin's case, doing ultra fast runs of the tower to collect more items and to shuffle her powers.

  They had climbed to their rooms on the sixth floor, surrounding the central tree that was now the heart of the hotel. There was more space on the fifth floor, but Corvayne had worked to grow new sections that let them climb to the roof and look out over the vast green lake, it's rusted ruins, and the hills and forests. Today he just walked out of the stairs and around the covered courtyard. He was still planning to make a fountain that flowed around the tree and then off the side, but it was half made, piles of bricks and gloves suggesting what he was going to be doing if the main group didn't show up tomorrow, or the day after for the matter.

  It was quiet and Corvayne could feel that aside from Bell whom had come into the building, it was just him and Spears. Entering their shared rooms, he stored his equipment and then head into the bathroom, which Spears had designed to resemble a mossy alcove. As a counterpoint to the faint smell of mint everywhere on the floor, she had gotten a hold of some sort of variant that had a different floral smell that she associated with 'the tropics'.

  Bell had helped shape it too, so there were different chambers opposite sinks and closets and mirrors, some large and some nothing more than a closet for the toilet, each with wood doors and some sort of enchantment that fought moss and regulated temperature coming in and out. Mosh had to do that part, as Corvayne didn't have the means to practice enchanting. The big shower was where Corvayne pushed for extra space, having grown a little tired of washing in claustrophobic stalls in the Juggernaut. Even the largest one was too small for when Spears wanted to join him. He didn't think of himself as claustrophobic but growing up in a huge open desert, he wanted enough room the flop on the ground if he wanted to just have water hit his back.

  The second chamber was a smaller shower, which Bell apparently liked because it was like the juggernaut's cramped chambers, though with a chair so that someone could sit and soak.

  The third was a big bath, with a window that looked out to where the sect was building. They probably wouldn't be able to soak in the day once the sect had more flying traffic, but for now they could have a sort of open air bath, which was what Spears wanted.

  Belle walked in as the water was heating up in the shower, and while she was well into the level 200's, whatever had happen to Spears had made her fast and able to grab the girl.

  “Cmon, we'll wash your back!”

  Bell tried to fend Spears off. “You know I prefer to take baths alone!”

  “Yes but it also makes you sad for some reason.” Corvayne said, taking his shirt off. He was pretty happy that the princess still stopped to admire him. He blanked his face, summoning an expression he knew everyone though of as 'dead fish' or 'npc' then wiggled his eyebrows without any sort of smile and his eyes staring at a point over her shoulder to avoid blinking or looking away.

  She grabbed a towel and threw it in his face, which gave Spears a gap to yank her armored skirt down.

  “Fine! I yield, you stupid slime!”

  “You can call me big sis!” Spears offered, using her signature spear move to turn into liquid. During her dash from the door to the bathroom to the shower itself, she landed her weapon on a rack in the bathroom and arced her clothes neatly in the hamper. Corvayne tried to bury jealousy that she could use it so well.

  Bell grumbled but let Corvayne take her hand and what followed was cleaning and chatting about their day, with Spears leaving the trip to the lake out. The princess's day was spent getting ready for the last match of the tournament that had been interrupted. She was a natural with guns, and guns liked her. They did better in her hands, which was odd because she was still advancing on a 'Princess' line that had made her a 'Royal Rustler', which sounded better than the tier 4 class she had for a week, which was 'Crowned Cowpoke'.

  Corvayne could feel something odd with her, maybe just discomfort from sharing him with Spears, or perhaps that while they were friends, she didn't want to see him and Spears together. Hence he was more focused on using a second shower head to wash dirt and the smell of horse and acrylic paint off him, despite a soaped up princess and... Spears gargling water.

  Corvayne just mentioned that he was going to spend some more time looking into what history the Three Kings made public about the towers and their origins, as well as system materials. The public records he could access didn't have extra information on the Pilgrims, and only a few lines about the Watchers. The Magus wasn't mentioned, but the author also seemed to think there was no good reason to ever hang out on 'floor 0'.

  He didn't think that Dusky's origins were in the files he had gotten, so it was likely they wouldn't add anything onto his current goals to find his people and complete the pilgrimage. He hoped he could get some of the training manuals for weapon skills. His mind was still trying to slip away from the Dustman's imperatives, but he recalled he had been told to learn 'Springwind'.

  Spears had started trying to help Bell finish rinsing, so he stepped in and rescued her by acting as a physical wall, which caused her to blush and Spears to shoot ice cold water down his back.

  They got dressed quickly as LBC was coming back from training with Gylwin. Preshe came home a little later, usually choosing to do some shopping to help restock the smaller kitchen located on their floor. She had started crafting Essence gathering rings, with the goal to finance permanent boosts to their core members. Such trade had to be done carefully lest someone who thought like Rio decide to kidnap the entire sect.

  Spears pulled [[Unity]] then let a beat of hunger and curiosity go out.

  Bell held up her phone. “We have service on this floor.”

  They got a few different ideas back: Qualia of pizza, chefs salad, spirit rice, a painting of ribs, french onion soup, black crystals, and an armored space marine flowed back through the link.

  Corvayne started working on a few small paintings of ribs and dog food for the painted hounds. There was a sort of war that happened over unity that eventually moved to the phone, with Gylwin eventually pointing out a restaurant on the far side of town that could handle the majority of their requests.

  He felt a few of the links move a little faster to get home, though Preshe diverted to going straight for the restaurant with Bayou and Little Wing, aiming to get a table. Juggernaut of course refrained from moving. Corvayne for a moment was tempted to leap off the building and let gravity glide him down to the truck, but his desire NOT to use powers tempered it. Patience. It would be worth it.

  There was a '!' from Gylwin, and he tensed for a moment fearing it was an attack, but instead he saw the image of a procession coming from the down stairway. There were hundreds of people pouring from the nearest floor 19, carrying camping gear and equipment as they found the road and followed an elf leading them.

  Corvayne didn't think he'd be excited, but feeling Nyx and Mister I pop into his awareness as near, as well as Hylal, he saw Bell rush outside. She was clearly thinking about doing a flying leap off the building, so Corvayne pulled out a feather fall potion (musing as he did that a once dear emergency item was now something they had brewed dozens of) and shared half with Bell, letting her drop and roll without breaking the sidewalk.

  He let his shadow arms skitter down a large root that snaked downwards, dark hands pulling him along once they were clear of branches. Some of the townsfolk waved, must just sort of got out of the way: tower folk and Three Kings members alike seemed to intuit this was a good excitement.

  Circling the edge of town, Corvayne made it a mile down the paved road before he saw Hari and Wick out in front, hiking towards him. Wick put a hand up to look at him and Hari stretched up and waved. Oddly, he didn't feel the aversion that he expected from Wick, nor any warnings through unity as he came closer. Hari had a wide brimmed hat on, and oddly enough looked like she was wearing glasses. Wick on the other hand had let her hair go fully blonde, with just some green left a the tips. There was something bothering him between what he was looking at and [[Unity]] but he wanted to continue to be cordial towards his exes.

  Hari and Wick started running towards him, and he stopped walking because his two main senses told him Wick both was and wasn't moving. There was a surge of LOVE from both, which didn't make sense because he was pretty sure Wick was in princess mode. His eyes confirmed she was just watching with a placid yet almost apologetic expression.

  “What did-”

  It clicked as Corvayne saw dark circles under Hari's eyes behind the thick glasses, saw dark green hair hidden behind her hat come lose, saw a manic expression as she crouched, ready to pounce. Princess Anastaisa, a thin link, stood where she had stopped to send the distinct feeling of 'she's your problem now' as Hari-Wick tackled him.