Corvayne was still a little groggy from having something like a dozen sonic booms go through him a few minutes back, so he remembered making it up the stairs but now how he ended up at a greenish wooden table in a bar that looked like a hybrid of a fantasy bar and a modern jazz club. Dark blue neon signs suggested the bar, which looked a normal size, actually went on for possibly miles. If not for warm light above his table, and Lady Blood Claw watching over him, he probably would have panicked. Especially since he saw people sitting all around him, filling up tables.

Lady Blood Claw looked over and turned red, glaring at someone who pulled up a chair.

A male voice, sounding annoyed, came from Corvayne's side. “Well, I don't know what that was, but your luck won't hold up.”

Corvayne winced from the noise, then turned his head and saw a purple robed version of Argyle, sipping a coconut with an umbrella dangling off the side.

“That doesn't seem very monk-like.” Corvayne mumbled.

The monk glared at Corvayne. “I'm strong enough I don't give a shit what you people think.”

Corvayne raised his hands. “Oh. Thank you ever so much for visiting us mere peasants.”

The old monk sneered, rubbing the tip of his white goatee with two fingers. “My fault for letting you get away at Miss Seru's home. I promise it won't happen again. You can run into here, but there's nowhere to hide. There's nowhere I can't find you out in Cascadia, either.” He sipped his drink, and looked at it. “Pretty good.”

Corvayne groaned. “Any other pearls of wisdom from a serial killer?” He secretly was going to order whatever Argyle had after they were done trading pointless barbs.

“I am not some mere animal killing for fun. You must know what I want. Give me the girl, and I may permit you to live.”

“I don't know who you're talking about, but as my foul mouthed friends would say... Go fuck yourself.” Corvayne lazily flipped the monk off.

Argyle smirked, gesturing with his drink. “I'll kill you in a way where you'll have a few moments to regret dismissing a good-will offer to spare what, five lives for one?”

Corvayne looked at the man. “I wouldn't make a deal with a coward who's afraid to actually meet us face to face for a fight.”

Argyle surged to his feet, pushing his chair back. “You ran from ME! Bah... when you speak it's nothing more then the yipping of a weak dog!”

Corvayne leaned back. “Who's the dog here, us? Us, going about our day? Or you, who's now glued to the space port hoping to spot us before we decide sneak onto our ship?”

“I don't know what house's stupid son you are. Perhaps you're really Nyxion, given your walking mood-ring companion, but it matters not. Just remember, you're a long way from Tripic, boy.”

Corvayne tried to copy a look of bored superiority that Nyxion might take, as well as the dismissive drawl. “Ah, at least I have exile as my excuse for leaving civilization. I'm sure whoever your master is, they didn't send you to this dump of a planet because you're the best at your job.”

The monk's face went red and he reared a fist back, and voice that was so low he assumed someone had started a base intoned “NO FIGHT” as hand that made grunt's look dainty appeared out of the shadows behind Argyle and grabbed the man's torso, pulling him back into a cloud of gloom before he could squash Corvayne's head like a grape or whatever he was going to do.

Corvayne looked down, and used his boot to roll the abandoned coconut in the direction the hand dragged him. “You forgot this!”

Corvayne looked over to Lady Blood Claw. She smiled at him, skin glowing pink. “I'm glad I'm going to die following an interesting man.”

“Yeah, Nyxion's a real character.” He said without changing his voice. “Speaking of, where is everyone?”

“Exploring the Inn. You can go as far or deep as you like and still get back to our table in three steps when you make that your goal.”

He stood up and nodded at her. “I'm going to go find Wick then.”

A minute later he was holding his own coconut with a straw and looking around the bar. Doing so made him dizzy, as he discovered that space seemed to have more then 360 degrees in the place... he could keep turning for four spins before he saw the same table. Using the blue signs of the bar to orient himself, he first started walking deeper into the seat of tables along the bar. Oddly enough, after a minute of walking between tables he saw a girl sitting at a table who looked a little like Wick and nearly went up to her to ask her why she was sitting away from everyone, but got closer and Not-Wick turned and he could see under the hood she was wearing her hair was brown, and she was sporting an a scar and had a notch cut in one of her ears. She caught that he was looking at her and looked him up and down then flashed him a predatory smile.

Corvayne was sorely tempted for a moment to find out exactly how much Wick and her doppleganger matched but his worry that Argyle would find where the tower entrance was made him shake his head sadly and he resumed thinking about Wick, once more letting his feet guide him.

His path took him deeper, to another short woman in a blue robe sitting at a different table with another wizard-looking girl. Once more he'd swear that it was his Wick but with a different blue dye in her hair. In every other way she could be Wick's twin, down to her blurting a word out extra loud to her companion in a scratchy voice. She seemed to notice him and turned to look at him over her shoulder, first annoyed, then with what looked like consideration. This version loosened her robe up a little to show off some of her neck and shoulder and succeeded in forcing Corvayne to turn around.

The third one was a Wick look alike priestess with a chaste looking outfut. At least until she moved her leg and a slit on her dress revealed a garter strap which instantly made Corvayne turn around to the bar a foot behind him, which was nowhere in sight a moment previously, and ask for a glass of ice water. Five sips and a few moments staring at the dark teal rafters above helped him resist the urge to keep looking for interested Wicks.

After some wrestling with visions of a Wick harem Corvayne took a deep breath and pulled together his self control. He was looking for his Wick, and only his Wick.

Squeezing past a few more tables, he reached a wall lined with booths. Picking to walk right for no particular reason, he saw Wick sitting in a booth across from a figure in a cloak, taking up the dark corner of the booth. Wick looked at him coming and held up a hand. She pressed a stack of gold coins across the table at the man, then held up five fingers. The man shrugged, and took the stack of coins.

She stood up and shook the figure's hand. She frowned at Corvayne. “Bad news. I'll be at the bar. Talk to Stabby there and get the details.”

He watched her blow past him. What now? He turned back to 'Stabby' and sat down at the booth. The figure had no obvious features, aside from being tall and slim. It could have been a man, or a very tall woman. Corvayne could see a mouth and chin under the hood, but it was indistinct. Maybe it's what machines felt like when they tried to look at his cloak... There was something about the man that his brain refused to lock onto. Or woman, the features gave nothing away.

“Ahem. Hello Corvayne. You can call me Stabby as well. Nice to meet you, your lady friend told me about you. As did people looking for you!”

“Someone else is looking for me?” Corvayne leaned across the table. Stabby had a smooth voice that was also gruff and manly but silky and feminine all at once. Trying to parse who or what he was talking to felt like more then he could handle. He decided to forget trying to get the extra details as it didn't change that Stabby could help him figure out how they were being tracked.

“Argyle, as Wick knows. But I already don't like Argyle. He put a bounty of what amounts to one copper on you. Cheap bullshit. Nobody is going to hunt you for a copper! He is stingy with essence. A pity. That's how you actually get results. No, he's using your contracts to try to hunt you himself. See?”

The figure grabbed what Corvayne thought was a menu, but was actually a sort of chalkboard. On it was his name. Bounty alive: 168,000,000 essence Filed by: (defunct), currently on hold. Partial claim paid out to Anastasia. Bounty dead: .001 credit. Filed by: Argyle Baraboo 4/13/2900. Automatically placed in (ultra ultra low queue).

He could see why the monk had annoyed the bounty granting figure with the one penny figure. “Partial claim by Anastasia? Also, is the live bounty high for these things?”

“Getting you to the client would be worth a LOT of cash... if it was active. There's a small sum of money for information that I add to the bounty that I feel would aid in finding you. A woman cashed that in. I was hoping the info bounty would stay whole, to be honest. I mean the whole thing is a pain, as I can't clear the bounty itself to just pocket the money until the client is dead, or you are.”

He did the math and it dawned on him the odd and likely extremely powerful being in front of him could make a lot of money by just finishing the job and giving themselves the money.

Stabby waved a hand as Corvayne got ready to bolt. “Relax. I am out of the game here, and you don't have the highest bounty I could cash in. Not even close. Even if I could... I never broke a contract before. I loved killing, but I was always a professional.”

Corvayne eased his bottom back into the booth as Stabby went on. “As for everything else... I've very rarely seen a defunct tag. It means the tower itself can't make heads or tails of whats going on with whoever put the bounty out there... it looks like you're stumped.”

“Well, if I'm going to help you figure out who defunct is, first I need to know how the whole contract thing works.” Corvayne figured that would steer the conversation in a way that would tell him how he was being tracked.

“You supply money to me to form as the 'reward' for completion. I keep some, obviously. To have me form a bounty you need a target's name, or a specific description. Something like 'the masked desperado who keeps stealing the hearts of women in my village' is good enough, though if it's a bunch of guys all playing the same character, well, you have to reissue the bounty. Anyway, cashing in a live bounty, most of the time a hunter brings a target in, they sit in stasis, then we pop them out for the client. When the hunter comes back around again, the money is there. Kills are easier, they just bring us the body or something distinct specified in the contract.”

Corvayne folded his arms. “Okay, there's a lot of money posted by... someone... to capture me alive?”

“No, it's in limbo. There's a lot of things screwed up here. The bounty was posted over fifty thousand years. It's possible it's some sort of mix-up on a cosmic level because you don't look or feel like anyone who's been alive for a hundred years, let alone since near the start of the system. No offense.”

Fifty thousand years? He sat back, laughing a little. Stabby just folded their hands.

Corvayne blinked. “Is that serious? I'm a little bewildered. I'm not yet thirty seasons old, and the years were about the same length where I was as they are to Cascadia. Did something happen like, some other guy had my name and I inherited his bounty?”

The hooded figure nodded while somehow keeping the shadowy hood from revealing any features. “Well, that's what I wanted to ask you! There's some funny business going on with your name! I've only seen this a few times before. Mister Argyle triggered it with Lady Blood Claw just now. Oh, he's still trying to throw pocket change your way to remove the hold on the bounty, while blustering about how I have to tell him how much he needs. Which I do, but I can drag that conversation out.”

“So there's something making it hard to add to my bounty, and it also happened to LBC?” His mind drifted to the certainty she had about him being cursed.

Stabby put a rough hand on their chin, then started tapping the table with the same hand, suddenly delicate with nails painted blood red. “LBC? Oh, Miss Claw. Yes. Something's wrong with her name. It's like trying to cut your way through a ribcage: It works if you press hard enough but it's a bumpy ride. I mean, that means something because I am having thousands of conversations right now, and usually issuing bounties is just me.”

“Okay. Can I ask you about being hunted? It seems this guy can track us inside the tower with his bounty, but for a bit it's going to turn off if we match his price posted?”

“Yes. You know how your instincts tell you things? His right now also tell him which doors and stairs to take, as well as how physically close you are when on the same floor. He can't split clones off his clones, so he has to either send his proxy off into the tower it's in to find more money, or run another clone up a tower and hand it off.” Stabby shrugged. “I'd say you have about an hour to clear out of the tower before he gets enough money to re-establish the link and can send a clone out of the tower entrance you came in.”

Corvayne winced at learning he was on a time table. “Why tell us this? Or do you help all the clients you put contracts out on?”

Stabby shook it's head. “Oh no. See, the point of this is to encourage growth through conflict! That, and I like watching people fight, and the interplay of hunter and hunted and trying to outfox each-other with the system. That's not happening, because this prick thinks the greatest assassin in the universe is what, a bloodhound to be rented? I might respect him if he was down on his luck, but he's loaded in magic gear.”

Corvayne thought about all this. “Okay, so my name is on the books from a really old event and nobody is really looking to take me alive. Someone named Anastasia got the money for spilling the beans about... old Corvayne? Or me. So if someone comes in and goes 'uhh we paid for you to find this guy, where is he?' what happens?”

“Oh. If they could somehow prove they are the person who issued the first bounty, and it was for you, I'd reopen the reward for taking you in alive. But I'd say that's unlikely.”

“Can you describe who put the bounty in? Or do you, I don't know, replace yourself with a younger version every so often?”

The figure shook his head. “Sorry kiddo. I'm more like a gestalt of people who fit the bill for this role, and because there's something wrong with whoever gave the bounty, I can't tell you who it was.”

Corvayne smiled. “Thanks Stabby. I mean, it worries me that I might have some ancient evil looking for me because I share the same name with someone else...”

“Careful. I didn't say that was the reason. There's something greater linking you to this bounty aside from just having the same name. You are either him, or have some sort of overlap. Maybe one of those reincarnation things that has been happening more and more?”

“Okay, can I use this to put a bounty on Argyle? Dead.” Corvanye dipped into his ring and pulled out a handful of the rainbow ghost cores from the third floor. Stabby leaned over the table and smiled, bloody and cracked lips shifting to pale flawless ones.

“Oh yes. That will do quite nicely. I will mark him for five thousand essence. A little cheaper then my normal ten percent rate so you get a nice even number on the bastard. Would you also like to take out your own bounty on Argyle?”

“Of course.” Corvayne stood up and shook Stabby's hand. As chaotic as it looked, it very much felt like something solid coated in warm blood. He was surprised to pull his hand away and find it clean.

Stepping away and directing himself to their table, he saw that Mister I and Wick had joined Lady Blood Claw. Nyxion came back a moment later with a mug of beer.

Wick shook her head. “Don't get too comfortable! Once Seru is back, we gotta move. I don't doubt the monk can make money pretty fast in a tower, and once he matches the gold I put down he's going to be able to track us again.”

Seru pulled up a chair a few minutes later and set down a plate of beef nachos that instantly got Corvayne to salivating. The woman pushed the plate forward.

Wick looked furious, which made Corvayne reverse his decision to ask if Seru was sharing. Wick pointed at the plate. “Do you get that Argyle is here? We were going to go-”

Seru smiled. “Listen, I told you, I could get info right? Well I have a heap of it. All it cost me was some jewelery and a weird promise.”

Corvayne, having read a lot of stories, wanted to ask her to tell him exactly what she agreed to. Images of her being dragged into a fiery portal by demons came to him, no thanks to a play the Watchers put on featuring that sort of thing.

Wick leaned back a little bit, tapping the table. “Oh did you?”

Seru rolled her eyes, then tossed a pad of paper onto the table. Nyxion snorted. “This ought to be good.”

He lifted the pad and then squinted at it as he set it down, turning to her while rapping the pad with his knuckle. “How in the devil...?”

Seru smiled as Nyxion flipped through pages and pages of notes. Corvayne though the smug look on her face, for once, was backed up by her notes. She leaned in, looking all around before locking eyes with Corvayne. “I told you, I'm good at what I do.”