No Need for a Core?

Mordecai tried to not flinch too much in the face of his god’s obvious displeasure. It didn't help that he could also feel across their shared bonds that Moriko and Kazue were displeased with how his past and present machinations had attracted the disapproval of two gods. At least Ozuran was a lot less mercurial than his mother. “Greetings my lord.”

“Shush for now, and prove that you still have some modicum of self-restraint,” Ozuran replied. He then took in the room, noting both the physical and mystical signs of what had transpired, and then turned to Mericume. “Mother, would you be so kind as to explain how this mess came to be?”

The goddess sighed. “Well, it turns out that it was slightly my fault. But there was nothing interfering with their free wills; so only a little bit. I think we should start with Kazue there. She was one of my shrine maidens, and though sincere and sweet, she was never very good at it. Oh, she's a great artist and a fine dancer and singer, but more sedate rituals tended to make her fall asleep.” Mordecai could feel Kazue’s misery at Mericume’s frank words, and a growing sense of mortification. So he sent a quick pulse of comforting emotions to her, to help ease her pain. Seeing Ozuran’s eyes flick toward him reminded Mordecai: contracts and bonds are very much Ozuran’s domain, so with him nearby there was not going to be any private communication this way.

Mericume continued without seeming to notice the hint of interruption, though he doubted that she had actually not noticed. “During a ceremony, she got very drunk on some rice wine and wandered out to the reflection pool, got too fascinated by my moon's reflection, and fell in. Inebriated as she was, her water-logged clothes were too much for her, and she drowned. In shallow water.” She shrugged. “I couldn’t help but take pity on the poor thing. Resurrection rituals are too expensive for most mortals, and I could feel the potential forming for a living dungeon here, so I asked her soul if she’d like to have a more peaceful life. She accepted, I made a prophecy that turned out to be badly worded, but only if you interpret the language in a particular way, got her soul to become the seed of the newborn dungeon, and created a magic book to be her familiar.” She shot Mordecai a glare.

“Then apparently this half-elf… um, what was your name dear?” Mordecai was aware that Mericume could have chosen to know, but it seemed that she was choosing social niceties now.

“Moriko, my lady.”

“Right then. Moriko came wandering in, and fell down a trap that somehow connected to a bunch of old tunnels, and landed in what was supposed to be his tomb. Looks like they made a pact that let him bond his soul to hers so he could escape with her, supercharged her temporarily, and climbed out. Then somehow convinced this sweet little thing to help him out to get him a new body by merging his soul into her core.” Through all of this Mordecai could feel Kazue wanting to run away and hide in a corner.

Ozuran nodded “And it seems you want me to judge him, seeing as how you had him swear that oath. Very well, but give me a moment; my sister and father have noticed I’m distracted.”

“Of course dear. Give my niece my apologies, and let your father know I’ll come and make up for your distraction later.” Mordecai suspected that Ozuran would rather not do that second part. The Lord of Shadows was a touch more reserved than his mother or sister. His temperament was closer to that of his aunt’s. Ozuran closed his eyes a moment to focus his attention elsewhere, and when he opened them settled his gaze on Mordecai once more.

“Very well, I’ll take care of this. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.” Ozuran and Mericume nodded farewells to each other, then the goddess slipped back into the shadows. “Now, as for you… where should I begin?” And here it comes. Mordecai mentally braced for the oncoming lecture, one he knew was well justified.

“You are one of my followers. Supposedly a devotee even.” That last bit was laced with sarcasm, and well deserved; some of his avatars had acted as clerics and champions for Ozuran. “Yet, when pushed to vengeance, not only did you go past the bounds of the rules you had set for your own life, but also the divine rules that are part of the balance of being a living dungeon. You violated oaths you made to me in order to seek retribution in the now and sought to salve your pain with violence.” Ozuran was beginning to pace now, his frustration with Mordecai clear.

“And it didn’t work, did it? You slew those who had tried to wipe out your bloodline, and a lot of others who were little better, but many people got caught up in your petty war that didn’t deserve it. And when your vengeance had run its course, you just retreated back into your core to sulk and ignored the rest of the world. Do you know what you left behind? Not only shattered kingdoms and empires; no that is not the greatest of your sins. You left a different legacy too. The dragons you spawned using the Breach powers, the ones you designed solely for battle, born to a life of war; they were on the outside of your territory when that torrent of power faded. But there was energy to be found and you had not raised them to care about life. You had created them to kill. And to survive. So they did. They continued to ravage the land to devour enough energy to endure, for you had not built them as stable life forms. Tyrants and kings alike sent their heroes, champions, armies, and whatever other forces they could muster from around the world; it was a matter of survival.”

There was a wording there that had caught Mordecai’s attention, making it harder to listen to the rest, but he forced himself to tuck that bit of hope away for later. “We gods intervened and helped as much as we could of course; but too much divine force could have ravaged the world as thoroughly as what you unleashed, so we couldn’t just wipe them all away, as much as we wanted to. It was a disaster. Which is why I helped the priests design the rituals that sealed you away." Ozuran's tone softened slightly. "And to the extent we could justify, amnesty was offered to most of your former inhabitants, though some were loyal to their very end, even centuries later. Which I can respect at least. So I took in their souls when they did eventually pass, and gave them safe harbor.”

Ah, Mordecai had been wondering why he couldn’t feel the soul patterns of any of his former inhabitants. He hadn’t had the capacity to respawn them anyway, but he should have at least been able to find their souls.

“And now here you are again. You forged a slap-dash ritual in order to save your own sorry life, hijacking a sacred ceremony in the process to help you possess this woman; then used that same cobbled-together spell to bond yourself to another young woman. Oh, and you then proceeded to eat her magic book. Am I missing anything about this messy cobweb?” Ozuran growled, waving his hand as his power coursed over the various threads of magic binding them together.

Mordecai couldn’t help but yelp when that power hit a certain section. “Ow, careful!” Frozen hells, that hurt! He didn’t realize that the fail-safe hadn’t faded and merged into the rest of the bond yet. That was enough for Ozuran to pause, then curl his hand towards himself as if examining a small puzzle. Oh, Mordecai could feel that deeply.

“You didn’t tell them about this, did you? No, of course not. You are a special sort of idiot.” Ozuran sighed and released his grip on the web of soul bonds. “Ladies, you should know that the imbecile of a husband you are stuck with at least had the good grace to set himself up as the linchpin for a fail-safe. If anything had gone wrong with the ritual either time, he’s probably the only one that would have been hurt or killed.”

The nine-tailed kitsune began pacing again, then paused to peer closely at Mordecai. “Wait, you tweaked your avatar too. Hmm, no, not quite cheating; you paid a lot for that, didn’t you? None of your others are available to you anymore, not even your full dragon avatar. You’d have to create any new avatars from scratch, and you won’t be able to even think of doing that until our little dungeon maiden has a lot more capacity. Alright, I’ll let that pass.”

Ozuran was thinking still, and none of the three particularly wanted to interrupt him, but Mordecai had to ask one thing. “My lord, there was a phrase you used earlier… ‘tried to’?” Did he dare let even a flicker of hope exist here?

“Oh yes, you have descendants still. A few were survivors from the attack on the town you founded; others were already living their lives elsewhere and managed to go into hiding. One particular line was involved in founding the kingdom you are next to, but no, none of the members of the royal family know of their connection to you. And you’re lucky too; I already checked: neither of your wives have any direct bloodline connection.” Ozuran looked Mordecai directly in the eyes. “You didn’t think that part through back when you were making your little bargain with them, did you?”

“No, my lord.” That was all Mordecai could say. Infernal flames. He knew several bloodline detection spells, and he hadn’t even thought about them. And there was quite the fluster of confused emotions coming through from the bonds. He couldn’t blame them for that.

Ozuran nodded and continued thinking out loud. “This is really quite a spectacular mess you’ve made. And it’s even more amazing that there was no backlash. Putting in a fail-safe like that increases the chances that something will give, as you should know. Absolutely insane luck.” Ozuran froze briefly, his head tilting to the side in a gesture similar to the one his mother had made earlier. “Oh, I think I see.” This wasn’t making Mordecai feel better. Watching Ozuran slowly smile like that might be making it worse even.

“Alright, I’ll give you a second chance. No special punishments or curses. Doing anything else without hurting your two wives would be difficult at best anyway, and really, my mother shouldn't have directly intervened before she knew about you," The divine avatar shrugged wryly, "But she is known as the mercurial goddess of the moon for a reason. However, I’m expecting an old friend of ours to come visit me sometime soon. And then I can tell him that the person he calls his ‘best, funnest dungeon-friend ever’ has gotten back from vacation, and tell him where your new home is. I mean, at some level, he must already know, but it does make it easier for him this way.”

It took Mordecai a few moments to connect the dots, but the phrasing about 'funnest friend' was the key. “Wait, no, why are you getting him involved in this?”

“Oh, but Mordecai, do you really think Li isn’t already involved? My mother may not have the focus for making the best prophecies, but for a translation error to catch you up in it? That’s stretching coincidence, even if people were associating your story with ‘justice’ and the aftermath with a dark, grim sort of peace while everyone put things back together again. No, I think our ratling friend simply missed an old companion. And this sort of twisted luck and fate is exactly the kind of thing that happens with anything he's involved in.”

Mordecai wanted to respond, but he just couldn’t think of a good argument. He certainly didn’t have anything against Li personally, few did, and Mordecai considered him a friend even, but Li's existence was a kind of chaos incarnated. “Well then, we’ll just have to make sure we are prepared to greet him when he comes to visit.”

Ozuran nodded, “Agreed." He then paused a moment, studying Mordecai, "Your war not only killed enemies and innocents, but also those who should have been allies instead. If you had asked me for help, all of my devotees on this continent would have been there to aid you. Instead, they were trying to keep people alive against a swarm of monsters." Ozuran shook his head then sighed, "I hope you do a lot better this time. Please don't force me to make Li sad." Now he looked over to Kazue and Moriko, "Your husband will need your help as much as you will need his knowledge and power. Mordecai will be under scrutiny above that which most mortals get." With that, he stepped into empty space, leaving Mordecai to deal with a pair of intense gazes full of questions.