Corvayne woke sometime in the middle of the night, untangled himself from Hari and Wick, then stumbled down to the kitchen car wearing his blanket like a toga. He grabbed a pitcher of ice water off its magnet base on the counter and took the top off and downed the entire container, then opened the refrigerator, its light nearly blinding him for a moment before he squinted and pulled out a huge round chunk of grilled monster meat. Holding it by the bone he ate it in what felt like six bites.

Moments after devouring the meat he woke the rest of the way up and, feeling guilty, cleaned up the mess he had made eating and refilled the water pitcher. He bounced his mind through the rotation of Strength, Agility, Vitality when he felt a small prick on his shoulder. A few moments of breathing and cycling and he felt the sloshing still and little parts of him that had tiny crystal slivers growing in them relax as the crystals folded back into nothing.

He jumped a little as Spears Like Water flicked the light on, then her watery face somehow turned pink before she spun around to look away. As she turned back he marveled at how much human detail her liquid body retained as her form simulated a collarbone despite not having one. She seemed to be very rigidly standing there keeping his back to him.

“Corvayne! You recovered!”

He felt a breeze and looked down and pulled his blanket closed. Given he had already flashed everyone else today, he shrugged, and sat down. “Yes. Sorry for any trouble I caused you guys, I'm still not sure what was going on.” He meant it both about himself and how long he had been out. He had gone from posing nude in front of everyone after waking up to showering off his own gore then gone right to bed, only waking when Hari and Wick had come to check if he was all right all over.

Spears looked back at him and fussed with her t-shirt and pajama bottoms as a stray thought bubbled up from somewhere in him.

“I should say, I wasn't sure what was going on, but I know somehow that I'm an... Adept? Capital A.” Hari had told him they were looking for a way to talk to the Spider, and that the little insect had been drawing triangles that, with hindsight, were instructions how to deal with the crystals that were tearing him apart. Or more accurately, the energy in them. He felt like every cycle he did was reinforcing a foundation. The word foundation actually made the form wobble a little and he reasserted strength, agility, vitality to quell some sloshing.

The watery woman shrugged. “I don't know what that is... hey! Can I cook you something?”

Corvayne realized while thinking he had also been eying a pie someone had left under a glass lid on the counter. He then looked back at Spears. “I didn't realize you cooked.”

She smiled at him. “I blame that on whatever the curse was, I learned to cook to try to get your attention.”

Corvayne watched her stand and stalk through the kitchen, smoothly opening cupboards for bowls and spoons and fetching a pair of large monster eggs from the refrigerator as she moved. Water or not, she didn't walk so much as prowled, tall and graceful. Corvayne clamped down on a few thoughts that threatened the structural integrity of his blanket toga.

“French toast all right?” She asked as she flicked the electric stove top on.

“I think I've had that before.” Corvayne said, trying to remember if it was the fried square batter cakes that Grunt brought home a few times or the one made of heated flour-slime.

They lapsed into a silence that Corvayne felt was awkward until he heard Spears humming as she started making french toast, which the ingredients reminded him was a fancy way to say 'egg bread'. He noted that her liquid hands seemed to have control over other liquids, letting her flip pieces of bread into the goop she had whisked the eggs into without it sticking to her hands. She also didn't bother with a spatula, simply flipping the toast with her hands.

“I guess that form helps you cook...” Corvayne said, feeling a little odd watching her swishing her hips as she hummed and turning his attention back to a screen that showed stars outside and a fire that Reaper and Ears were using to warm their backs as they handled watching bound sleeping bags.

“Yes, though I can boil so I try not to touch red hot things. I was pretty clumsy before I started training my spear craft with Waves-Within.”

“I don't remember you ever being clumsy.” Corvayne added, trying to make it sound light.

“But you remember saving me a few times, don't you?”

He nodded and she turned back to cooking, and a little while later he had a plate of french toast with strawberry and powdered sugar and butter and syrup drizzled on it.

“What do you think?”

Corvayne took a bite into the toast, taking a moment to enjoy its soft texture and blend of different sweet flavors with a savory hint of butter. There was a faint taste under it that suggested the monster eggs gave it a hint of orange flavoring, but it might have just been her recipie. He hadn't thought after eating a whole chunk of meat he'd still have room for anything, but found he was still hungry and thirsty. Spears seemed to guess he would be as she set down a tall glass of cold milk. Possibly also from a monster, because it somehow had a hint of something like mint in it that made it even more refreshing.

“its very sweet. In a good way. its delicious.”

Spears sat next to him, scraping her metal chair against the floor. She didn't have sleeves on, so he could see some the light both reflecting off her and diffusing through her clear arms. She stopped eating for a second and Corvayne realized he had been caught staring and he focused very hard on slicing his toast. Spears leaned over to bump her shoulder against his, feeling like a warm water balloon, then pulled her own plate closer to his and ate next to him for a while. When Corvayne had cleared his plate he stood up, made sure his bed sheet covered anything sensitive, then nodded at Spears.

He watched her face as she smiled and looked over at the door. “Did you want to train?”

“I need pants.”

Spears blue watery surface flushed a little pink as she held a hand over her mouth. “Oh! Did you not get your strawberry pants back from Lady Blood Claw yet?”

Corvayne gave her a level glance. “I have other pants... also other people are sleeping.” He glanced back to where he had left Hari and Wick in bed.

Spears folded her arms. “Now that you have... two? Anyway, now that you have girlfriends do you think you can get out of training just because you were up late kissing?”

“Kissing?” Corvayne had managed to push it aside, but once again he was struck at how different Spears-Like-Water was from her previous viper-mouthed self.

“You know what I mean!” She got flustered, and Corvayne put his hands up.

“Okay Spears. That aside, its the middle of the night and after everything that happened just now I'm still sort of... spent.”

She folded her arms and looked away. “When we were growing up, I remember you making time for me.”

“Well, we spent a lot of time hunting and training after we grew up. And you are here now, and I won't say no to another friend.” Corvayne got to his feet and took his plate and considered if he had a cross-skill that could clean it. Maybe [Flows-Like-Water]? He moved over an inch using the [Cross-Skill] with the plate but it was still covered in Syrup. He double checked his sheet's knot. What other skills could he use?

Spears walked beside him and wiped a hand over his plate, cleaning it flawlessly. “What about our engagement?”

Corvayne jerked away a little and his sheet started to fall. He wasn't shocked enough to let that happen, and pinched it closed. “You had said that it was just an assumption that people had, right?”

“I have to remember... that you don't remember it. Or me.” She took a deep breath. “Okay we'll work on making some new memories. Different ones! Get dressed and we'll go watch a movie. You can paint or carve wood if you don't want to watch it.”

That stopped him. “Carve wood?”

She looked at him. “That was one of your hobbies. You like reading, working on machines, and you made little figures... I know Wick borrowed your big paintbrush to make her summoning circle.”

Corvayne caught her word choice. “But not my paints?”

“We had plenty of both fresh blood and bodies and quite a few spare fresh body parts from you... she was only going to complete it as a last ditch effort.”

Corvayne now had to ask Wick what exactly she was going to try summoning to save him. That and let her know she could keep that paintbrush. He sidestepped wondering if extra copies of his brain that had spilled out also had his memories. Focus on the important stuff. “I guess I was out of the loop, was that why those other guys were attacking us?”

“Oh! The adventurers? Well they came to shake us down, and Nyx told me to tell them off, along with... Grunt?” She winked. “So I gave them both barrels, and then they came back with friends and we were beating them up when you woke up. Most of them are alive and we're going to ransom them when we get to civilization since the guild pays people not to kill them.”

Great. Already making friends on this new world. Hopefully they didn't have any Argyle-Class threats that were going to ambush them and destroy the truck in one blow.

Corvayne looked over at Spears and could see the water under her eyes looked a little dark. “Don't you need some rest? You were up with Seru trying to run that game...”

“Curse keeps me awake, I'll probably drink myself to sleep after tomorrow.”

“Oh right, I forgot. I'll try carving, I suppose.” He had the fire breathing dagger and he could try to see if he could turn off the aspect that made it burn things it cut while also cycling his talent and watching a movie. He'd be sitting down, so it was technically resting.

He walked out of the dining car and went up to the series of rooms and crept into his, careful not to wake Wick who was tossing and turning. Hari of course was dead asleep, spooning a large pillow under the covers. There was such a large difference between Hari awake in bed and Hari asleep... he had heard his friends had all done different things to try to help him with his body erupting into shards and that Hari and The Spider had ended up finding the solution. He owed her even more, now.

He left the room and climbed down to the group space. The girl who they had found cornered by bandits near the spider was sleeping on the curved seat, turning fitfully and clutching a blanket. There were some of Seru's table top gaming debris left on the table near the girl, including a 'reforge' bin full of garbage.

Spears saw the girl and turned to a hatch near the group area and opened it up, pulling another pair of blankets from a cubby and tossed one over the villager before sliding with the other blanket into the other side of the divided space. She turned the television on and dropping the volume to nearly mute before flipping through the hard-drive attached to the screen that had movies.

Corvayne sat down near her and Spears tossed the blanket to cover both them and put on what looked like an action movie about a group of aliens with dart throwers and stealth suits who were getting picked off in a jungle by an insanely strong commando. He didn't pay much attention, having taken a block of spare wood from Mosh's shop under the sleeping area and started carving on the table a little figure.

He was shocked that while he needed to focus on the dagger not to singe the wood, and his own body to try not to start producing knives, he didn't need to think about what he was carving that much. His hands just knew where to go, making little cuts and knicks and fishing out details as the lump of wood became a woman in a fetal positon clasping a sword, a city growing out of her spine. He had gotten the idea from the Cascadia seal and flag, a light blue figure on a white background in a similar pose. His own rendition, with his knife moving without thinking, took on some of Wick's features.

Spears leaned against him and it broke him out of his trance. She had her head against his shoulder, and looking over she was snoring gently.

He shrugged and went back to carving and half watching the second movie she had put on, a comedy about a colony ship where an AI mistakenly edited the crew so there were a bunch of lookalikes on the way to a planet called 'Forum 4'. Corvanye actually got the reference, as he had watched the Watchers put on a play this movie was no doubt based on. Which stopped him a moment as he thought about something. The books that the Watchers had were a weird hodgepodge. Sometimes they'd have the full series on things, but just as often he'd find the first or middle or last book...

Of course, he was away from the network, where he could probably find out if some of the stories he had read had endings if there was a shared culture.

Another thought for later. He had a lot of those and was sure he kept dropping them, but it was hard to be laser focused when there was a new crisis every few days. He flicked his knife across the wood, adding a few more details to the Cascadia City Crest Girl, Wick Edition. Wick was probably happy to sit tight for a little while, until the next UFO or NMO or whatever you called the glowing lights in the sky dragged them elsewhere.

He set the finished figure down and saw that the Villager girl, well, young woman, was awake. She crept across from her couch to theirs, still wearing a blanket, and settled in to watch the movie.

“Do you know what they are saying?” Corvayne asked, and the girl shook her head.

“No but its interesting.”

“Corvayne, by the way.”

Her stony expression for a moment twinged into a smile before she schooled her face. “Shallee. Is Corvayne you real name, or an adventurer's name?”

“Uh, its real.”

“Oh. It sounds like the kind of monster names my uncle would have in his stories. Like Bludfyre a goblin wizard who ate children near swift rivers. Or Mudguts, who would stab children in their bellies as they slept if they didn't make a cooking fire to ward him off.”

That sounded like they were just trying to get kids to not drown or get the runs, but Corvayne nodded. “I can see that.”

“You're not a vampire, right?”

Corvayne felt himself glower a little. “No.”

“Okay. I know they cannot lie if you ask them. I just figure you might have been exploding for the last two days because you got caught in the sun or something. I would not tell the others even so, I owe you.”

She didn't seem to wait for a response and went back to watching the screen. Corvayne felt Spears stir a little but continue to snore, so he pulled another chunk of wood out and started working on carving as the goofy movie played on, enjoying his quiet company.