Corvayne was nearly out of the scarred land before Lady Blood Claw jet past him then circled back to land. He was carrying Bell before him, concerned that she'd go into cardiac arrest if he wasn't watching her. He had been blinking a moment before LBC arrived, startled after getting used to stark whites how vibrant the green of living grass was, as well as the sudden smell of life instead of the sort of odd bleach smell that the elementally overloaded landscape had.

He hadn't really been thinking of if his friends had made it, his mind consumed with Bell white colored burns, watching his footing while balancing her, and the sting of every glimmering flake of salt or ash or whatever was fluttering down, eating his skin and turning his battle scars from bedding the princess into boiling sores.

Lady Blood Claw rushed over to help him, rather then the princess, which confused him but probably meant he looked like he felt.

"Is everyone okay?" he croaked out.

Lady Blood Claw nodded. "Aside from the empire's wall... the hill we were on was spared aside from a single glancing ray."

Corvayne helped her load Bell onto the bike, then turned back. Lady Blood Claw made a questioning noise, but Corvayne gestured at the towering form of Diamond. The mountain sized construct had stopped, slumped forward, arms hanging limply.

"It can't be hurt, but she can get tired."

He lifted what remained of his shirt under the chain mail to look Spears in her current singluar eye. "Hey Spears... this is our chance. We can try to get to her chest to extract the curse."

Lady Blood Claw gave him a disapproving look, her skin flipping to a dark pink color. He needed [[Unity]] to pick up this was disappointment.

"It's not because she's topless." He protested.

"You haven't extracted my curse yet." She said, though her skin flashed white with red criss-crosses for a moment. He wasn't fast enough with [[Unity]] to pick up what emotion she had before her skin changed and she shut down their link, but the burnt orange she changed to made him guess it was a flavor of annoyed.

Corvayne nodded. “I'll try again, but it's one thing to have someone willingly let me try and I won't get a shot at Diamond again.” He wasn't sure he wasn't about to die, but seeing Bell broken had him thinking about the need he felt to help.

“Really, I can't get it through your thick skull. Don't die.” She gave him a little salute, then sped back towards the hill they had camped on.

Corvayne downed a homemade healing potion and stretched. “I have to go fast, I suspect even being near her is going to be like being on Lava.

Spears spread herself out, creeping over Corvayne's body in a ticklish and warm wave. She gave somewhere inappropriate a squeeze. “Whatever she did didn't hurt really, so I'll act as your armor this time!”

“Please keep your hands off my dick until we finish the job here.”

“Who said that was my hand just now?” Spears whispered into his ear. “I want to make sure that if we go, it was doing something you love.”

“I assume you mean yourself, having sex, or running into impossible odds.”

“And all for a good cause!”

He wished he had her confidence that this was going to work. It was entirely possible that being so huge he wouldn't even be able to pull anything out of her, or would die touching a titanic curse vine. Or just burn to death despite wearing his girlfriend as a suit. Not a phrase often used by the sane sane, but he was about to charge his big-sister childhood friend the size of a mountain, which he had flat out never read in any of countless novels.

That and he already had pants that were made out of jelly inside. He felt something wet near his thigh. “It's sweet in here!”

“Keep your mouth near my face. Focus... I'm going to run at her.”

Corvayne switched to [[Agility]] and lightened his weight a few dozen pounds, then started sprinting at Diamonds, using what remained of the hills nearby as ramps to leap to the next span of flat ground. Soon enough she filled his vision. He thought about how much damage a kick or slap from her hands would do, then banished it. If she was even a little awake, she could probably reproduce the beam that the empire had used. A part of him suspected she made some of the tools they were using.

He veered to a hill and lowered his gravity as he ran up it and launched himself at her shimmering chest, the curved diamonds studded with points that were both alluring and probably lethal. There were edges that would slice him to bits if he tried to cop a feel. Which he couldn't do without hands a few times the size of his anyway. It was hard to think of her as someone he knew, and up close she stopped being attractive and got filed into a superstructure.

He didn't have a good way to slow himself so instead he pushed himself into [[Vitality]] then used [Flow Like Water] to buffer running into her, aiming for where her assets tucked into her chest and bracing himself in the man sized gap. Thankfully, despite the curved parts of her looking life-like, her pendulous chest was not, in fact, able to sway, or he'd likely have been unable to brace himself like a rock climber. Or he'd die a very embarrassing death crushed under her breasts. Instead, he caught himself using gravity to help stick to her. Once he felt stable, he extended a slime covered hand to his side, touched the surface of her sternum and felt Spears stick him to Diamond.

He tested the weight of his hand, then without needing to tell her, had her stick a boot, then slowly twisted so he was facing her. The energy radiating off her was intense, and he felt his face started to warm up.

“Is she super hot?” He asked.

Spears made a cute little grunting noise. “No, but you're heavy Corvayne.”

“Sorry, I don't have the fine control to make my hands stick and my body to be super light yet... bear with it a little more.” He swapped to [[Strength]] to help him try to find a grip, though Diamond's skin wasn't life-like enough for there to be enough creases to climb.

He started climbing up the side of Diamond, ignoring that if Spears was not acting as a living shield he'd likely be getting cooked by the magical radiation that was warming his hands. Spears might have to live with them leaving Diamond behind on this world, as it looked unlikely she would fit through the portal and also because it's possible she would cook him the first time she went in for a hug. Which would also kill him given the mass of her arms.

He picked a spot that felt right, and bracing with one hand pressed his other against her, thinking about vines and curses. He pressed and... nothing.

“Try opening up, for just a bit on my hand.”

She did and instantly he felt fire on it, so he pushed and after twenty seconds had to pull it away. “Cover it please. Please.” As she re-enveloped his hand he switched to [[Vitality]]. The searing faded as it fixed the ravaged skin.

He held himself still so he wouldn't have to think about Gravity and tried using Compass to point to where the curse was. It shot upwards, way past her chin, towards the faint outline of the diamond moon overhead.

“Oh come on.. this isn't her real body Spears.” He sighed. “It's a golem or dummy or something... she's up on that moon.”

Spears quivered which was like sitting in a massage chair all over. “Compass is pointing at it?”

“Yeah, that or she's in the air. Maybe the UFO is the body? No, it seems off. It's like... my shadow hands I think.”

“Then what the hell is this?”

“Probably her main 'weapon' or something like a pet. Crap. I don't think we can get to her at all. Starting a space program... even with Mosh that's a few months.”

“What about Nyx? He told me he crashed a ship... we can go pick that up.”

He was wary about going back to Cascadia. “If we go back, it's very likely we create a trail for them to follow to us. Part of setting up that absurd camp is to make sure Wick stays safe.”

Spears sounded a little crestfallen. “It's all about her, huh?”

“The solution is to send people who don't attract attention and are not associated with us back. Or I go with acceptable stealth, as determined by our resident spider.”

As he spoke he felt a small jolt. Something started humming. “We have a bigger immediate problem.”

As soon as he spoke he saw Diamond's arms start curling up. He felt the hostile intent and pushed himself off her, watching as the huge glittering hand-claws moved. Was it going to slap him?

No, Diamond cupped her chest and it was like two buildings were flying at him. Corvayne pumped gravity and felt the air snap as the glittering breasts slammed into each-other, the sound both sounding at the same time like god slamming two planets together and also somehow making a slight bouncing sound.

“She just tried to give us a death paz-”

“Spears, not now!” He had to figure out how he was going to land, as if she was fully awake he was landing right where she could stomp him or slap him. He spun in midair to look behind him and saw a palm the size of several city blocks coming for him.

He spun around to see the ground was also coming. “Spears, use one of your water moves! Like a rocket!”

She drew her spear and pointed it backwards, while Corvayne activated [Leap Strike] and aimed for a patch of ground forward. He first felt his back get pushed as a tremendous hiss rang out, then his ability kicked in and his spear started tugging his hands down like a hungry dog on a leash to the point on the ground. They picked up speed that looked like it was going to be leathal even as a glittering shadow covered him. Diamond's hand blocked out the sun, and looking forward he could see her fingers pressed together above and ahead of him.

He slammed into the ground then used [Flows-Like-Water], Spears still using her version of [Storm Thrust] to jet them forward in a great rolling cloud of dirt, just snaking out of the shadow of the huge falling hand before it slapped the ground, blasting them out of control in a spiral away as it shattered the ground.

Corvayne saw the ruins of the ornate wall as he tumbled and did his best to aim for the gate in the broken structure, somehow getting them inside, slamming against stone but making it out as a wave of earthen debris washed over him. Shards of rock, some glowing with light energy rained down.

He scrambled to his feet, expecting a beam or further attack, but it took the statue a large amount of time to pull it's hand back, almost like it was a spring that it was now recoiling. He switched to [[Agility]] and ignored his leg's protesting as he blasted down the dirt path.

“We got away!”

Corvayne knew the old rule about asking the universe to prove one wrong, and used [Flows-Like-Water] to juke sideways as a small beam of death raked the road. He aimed for trees and hills, zig-zagging as the giant avatar started burning blazing white energy into the ground. Thank god it's aim was as terrible as it's speed... perhaps it had terrible reaction time because it was being piloted from the moon?

As he got one of the rolling hills behind him, it seemed like her attacks couldn't punch through rock as well as they had before.

“We got lucky... getting that close to her. If she had just tried to slap us against her chest it might have been an instant loss.” He stopped to take a few breaths, then continued jogging, trying to pace himself even though he was going faster then most cars. His lungs were burning as were his legs, but he didn't dare switch to [[Vitality]] until he had put about ten miles between where he landed and the source of a footstep he felt.

“Lucky? If she's up there, we have no good way of getting to her!”

“If our friends are okay, we got in and got out without losing anything. We'll come up with something. There's got to be a weak point. We learned what didn't work, so call it a draw.”

“... Are you okay Corvayne?”

He gave into his body requesting a break and slowed down while using [[Vitality]]. He dug in his ring as well and popped a white potion that Hari had labelled in her messy elvish 'stamina'. It tasted like oatmeal. He had to walk while drinking it, as it was what he'd call 'gluggy' as a potion.

That meant he needed water too to wash it down, so he drank and walked for a half beat, then started running again.

“I'm trying to focus on the good, but I'm guessing the empire lost a lot of people. I fell in love with Bell but I can't protect her, and we've failed. The town is doomed, unless there's some sort of super weapon we are forgetting in the ruins under the castle.”

Spears stilled, which felt like wearing something that shrunk two sizes. She loosened back up, but quivered with excitement. “There's more then one Diamond!”

“Yes. The problem is the other is up on the moon.”

“Oh, well... no that's not the point, also she's probably the moon itself to be honest.”

Corvayne bit his lip. “That's a rather bold guess.”

“No, it explains why the moon seems closer.”

Corvayne stopped running and took a deep breath, then looked up. Yes, it looked a little larger. He did not fare well against the mountain sized monster, and he certainly wasn't going to parry or an entire moon.

“Spears, really, sometimes I'd like you to lead with something that's going to destroy the planet.”

“It's fine! We can fix everything. When we fought, I was in two places at once. Then I woke up. We go into the dungeon, find her, beat her until you can pull her curse out, and it will fix her outside.”

“I don't think we can win, even in a dungeon.”

“You were able to beat me! It probably gives you a handicap.” Spears wiggled. “We'll go right to the palace, I bet there's a tower entrance inside the dungeon under it.”

Corvayne considered his other options. “We need to hook back up with them... see if we can find the entrance and get as many people inside the dungeon as possible.”

“In case we fail?”

“Yes. In case we fail.”

He looked forward as he ran, but in his mind he saw glittering doom in the sky, looming closer every moment.