No Need for a Core?

Moriko had spent her time wandering in a growing spiral around the dungeon entrance, in part to familiarize herself with the area, and in part to get a good, diverse sampling. She’d hung three small bags from her belt, one for plant samples, one for rock samples, and one for insect samples, which usually included a plant sample or two. She also had a few paper pouches she normally kept incense in, but she’d transferred those into small boxes she’d asked Kazue to make for her. These she used for individual soil samples.

The cool air from the recent sunset felt nice, but she was pretty certain that meant she’d lost at least one night of sleep. The chi she’d gotten from Mordecai had helped refresh her, but over-boosting like that had left some side effects she was trying to work off, such as a little jittery jangle to her nerves, and this exploratory walk was perfect for that. Eventually, she felt it was time to head back in, and double-checked the few snares she’d left out. Nothing yet, but that wasn’t surprising. By morning she was expecting a few, and she’d set these to hopefully be non-lethal, so she’d need to have bigger bags ready. Fortunately, she had a few in her travel pack, as it turned out the dungeon couldn’t just hand her everything she needed. Seems she wasn’t able to claim dungeon-created loot as a contractor.

When she got back to the dungeon, the half-elf found several changes. Starting from just inside the entry, the ceiling was studded with a scattering of white crystals that gave off a soft glow, and which she found to continue through the dungeon. And the back wall had been pushed back and reshaped into a semi-circle arching toward her. Through the doorway in the center of the wall she could see the inside curve of the circle and a pedestal, and on either side of the entrance where she was at were tables inviting people to leave gifts. Well, that was certainly useful. The bag holding the insects was the first to land on a table; she’d been repeatedly checking that it was drawn tightly enough pretty frequently. She had no real issues with bugs, but she didn’t really want unknown ones escaping and crawling on her. The other two bags shortly joined the first, and they all disappeared. Ah, wait, how was she - oh. The now empty bags appeared back on the table. Moriko guessed that they didn’t count as dungeon loot, since they’d been hers to begin with, and collected them for later use.

“Well, you two put your time to good work, which is great and all, but how do you want me to proceed?” She asked as she walked into the circle and approached the pedestal. Kazue’s mental response was a little sleepy and distracted feeling, but the concept of left was there. Mordecai’s response was more direct, and sounded a bit amused.

“Either path would actually work; as a contractor, the dungeon won’t hurt you, not even traps. You could hurt yourself if you tripped or walked into someplace innately harmful to you, but everything else is safe. But the left-hand path is indeed the easier one, though both are incomplete right now. The layout’s done, we need content still. Come on in, we’re waiting for you.”

Moriko eyed the two free-standing walls, then pushed the left button, to get treated to a decent show as a stone wall slid into place to cover the door behind her and the wall started spinning until the doorway centered on the left free-standing wall. This revealed another sliding stone wall that made a somewhat dramatic grinding sound as it slid out of the way smoothly. Wait, that didn’t make sense. “It’s not actually making that sound is it? That’s just for effect?”

She’d expected the touch of smugness to come from Mordecai, but it was Kazue who was feeling self-satisfied. Must have been her who came up with it. Well, it was a nice touch, potentially intimidating those who missed the discontinuity between grinding sound and smooth movement, and then informing those who caught it that care had been put into this crafting. She gave the kitsune mental head pats, and smiled at the happy response.

As the monk moved on through the straightforward path, she saw what Mordecai had meant by needing content. The rooms were empty except for the occasional ‘rabbit’ sticking its head out of a hole to look at her curiously, though there were some markings on the ground and wall that Moriko guessed were some sort of notes for later use. At the end of the path, she found a spiral staircase leading downward, and beyond that another room with a spinning wall that triggered automatically, letting her finally into the Core room.

“You know, that walk is going to get tiresome after a while. Oh, and congrats on starting on your second floor, I think.” She said as she approached the pair snuggled on the couch in the far corner. That was new too. “Anything in particular I should know about?” Kazue’s tail shifted in a lazy greeting, but the girl did not uncurl from Mordecai’s lap.

While she couldn’t really sleep, the part of Kazue’s mind that made decisions and used concentration needed a break, so she just drifted in the warm comfort of Mordecai’s embrace. It didn’t mean she wasn’t aware of what was going on, she just wasn’t thinking about any of it more than she had to. The part of herself that immediately started analyzing Moriko’s little gifts was essentially running on autopilot, since she wasn’t really deciding on much.

The pouch of insects also contained the leaves and such that Moriko had used to scoop them up. The plants were easier to analyze, so she did those first. Huh, the ‘grass’ she was growing was kind of just a plant made in her mental image of grass, and she didn’t realize there were so many variations. And every leaf, stem, or stick she analyzed seemed to have the information for the whole plant, letting her figure out how to rebuild it completely.

The insects took a bit more time to figure out completely. The way they used liquid pressure to move their bodies- oh, that was called hydraulics. She was pulling that concept out from Mordecai’s store of knowledge, triggered by analyzing how it worked here. Okay, that was more information than she needed to know right now, and she just put it aside to continue her work here.

More plant samples came in, and then mineral and soil samples too, and she went to work on them all. Everything that was new taught her something, and it gave her a little boost of energy. Soon she found she knew more about plant and insect biology than she ever thought she would, and a limited understanding of geology to go with it.

While she wasn’t directing anything specific to happen, her new knowledge synergized with her previous intent when creating her dungeon, and the plants and soils in the warrens changed to mesh with how things were supposed to work, restoring a portion of the mana she had used to generate them as the life cycle began to work properly, with synergistic insects spawning in the soil to support it.

Kazue let herself be happy and content just dwelling on her world working in harmony, though the empty rooms called for her attention too. Mmm, maybe in a bit, but something else was tugging at her attention. She focused on the room around her avatar, and blinked at Moriko and Mordecai as she tried to remember what she’d just heard. Moriko said something about taking a bath and then going to bed, but some company wouldn’t be minded? Oh, and they were both looking at her.

Kazue blushed and scrambled to her feet. “Oh, ah…” she could feel both of them were waiting on her decision, welcoming but not insisting. And, she wanted to, but.. “N, not yet I think.” She took a deep breath to calm herself. “I do think I’ll join, but, just, I think I need a bit more time.”

“It’s okay, neither one of us is going to rush you.” Mordecai murmured as he rose from the couch, then leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. “But you may want to distract yourself for a bit then.” Right, that was probably a good idea. Moriko kissed her other cheek with a soft ‘good night’, and the two headed towards Moriko’s room. Yeah, distraction, that's a good idea. Well, those rooms were calling for attention and she blinked, realizing that only the left-hand path needed to be filled out. Mordecai had grouped some of her bunnies by how they could fight and encouraged them to gather in those group types in the combat challenge path. Well, she didn’t particularly want to deal with that anyway.

So the kitsune made her way to the first room of the left-hand path and looked around as she decided what it would be. She finally decided on a meandering garden path with little side paths that created swirls and little private nooks, and added some benches here and there, making sure to start some fruit-bearing trees and bushes too. Hmm, it’d be nice to have some more variety. Well, maybe on Moriko’s next trip outside. Oh, she almost forgot! People might need some facilities! Let's add that near the exit. Speaking of which, she needed some sort of puzzle or challenge. For now, she decided on a fairly simple one: To the left side of the exit she created five small pedestals, each with a slab of different colored stone on top, and a small generic flower shape in the center of the slab. She double-checked her garden and tweaked a few things, making sure there was a flowering plant with matching colors for each pedestal, and that each matching color grew only at the end of one of the offshoot paths. If you want to continue, you have to take the time to explore and appreciate her garden!

Kazue used a somewhat similar concept for the second room, only this time it was a hedge maze. Aware from the way Mordecai had set things up that people would sometimes cheat if they could, she made sure her hedges grew all the way to the ceiling! She also used multiple species, the ones growing next to the path were pretty and might have flowers or berries, but the ones growing in the center of the hedge wall would be hard, thorny, and entwined with plants like poison ivy. She didn’t want any cheaters!

For the third room, she got a touch more whimsical. The overall theme seemed to be a fantastical flower garden, with glowing butterflies flitting about flowering plants, trees, and bushes. Near the exit were seven single-stalk plants that looked like they should have a flower, but did not. Careful observation would allow one to note that each plant had a distinct appearance, and other plants of a matching appearance had the same color flower. And the ‘butterflies’ were actually tiny faeries. The trick was to catch a properly colored faerie without hurting it and bring it to the right stalk, where it would turn into a flower.

Now she was really getting into the idea, and created a more intricate puzzle for the fourth room, creating several springs and a lot of channels and ways of diverting water into different channels, some of them with hidden (but findable) ‘traps’ that would send water in unexpected directions. The puzzle was to divert water in the correct way to water all of the ‘withered’ plants, which immediately spring to bloom when watered, and immediately wither when not watered.

The fifth room combined all of these puzzles into one. There were more withered plants than could be watered, but there was a tile set at the entrance giving you leaf shapes. So you had to figure out which plants needed water, divert water to them, compare the now healthy plant to similar ones to figure out what color flower it was supposed to have, and then go catch a faerie to bring to that plant and become its flower.

It was close to morning by the time she was done, and she happily wandered back into their core room to find Mordecai sitting in a meditative pose on the ground, though not for long as he opened his eyes at her approach. “Morning. You’ve been busy.”