No Need for a Core?

“I think we’ve trained your avatar as far as we can until we’ve got another floor.” Mordecai said, considering Kazue thoughtfully. “So, while we wait for Moriko to wake up, I had something I’ve been meaning to ask about.”

“Erm, okay.” The little kitsune said, shifting a touch nervously under his gaze. “What did you want to know?”

“So, for one thing, when we met you, you had only one tail, but you are always wearing a hybrid form, which most one-tails can’t do. I’m a little surprised you aren’t a touch, well, fuzzier.” It was more of a statement, but with an implied question in it.

“Oh that, well, my clan has had a lot of, ah, relationships with the humans and elves who live nearby. So some of us pop up like this instead of full fox features. And occasionally one of the humans shows some kitsune affinity, which can be strong with the royal family. We recently had a princess join our clan, and become a full kitsune! Well, the same sort of form as I have for her default. And I can still change into a tailless form if I want.” Kazue blinked. “Wait, ‘had’?”

Mordecai grinned at her, he’d been wondering how long it would take her to notice. The little kitsune rolled out of his lap in a flurry of fluffy tails as she tried to get a hold of them all at once. “Three! I have three tails! I could live to be 300! More if I keep getting tails! Well, I guess that won’t matter because I’m a dungeon now. But still! Three tails! Woohoo!” He watched her dancing around for a bit, happy for her, but what she’d said brought up another question.

“Ah, Kazue? More tails let you live longer? That wasn’t what I experienced before.” Kazue nodded, still bouncing from foot to foot and cuddling all the reddish floof.

“Yeah, um, not sure exactly about that one. Some time ago one of the previous matriarchs figured out a ritual or something, and blessed all the kitsune in the clan with the potential for longer lives. But it seems to have come with a drawback, 'cause we don’t have kids as often. And, well, we have a lot more girls than guys, which sort of helps, but it’s part of the reason so many have gotten involved with men who aren’t kitsune.” She suddenly stopped and stared at him suspiciously. “Hey, how long have I had new tails! And why didn’t you tell me sooner!”

Huh. Things certainly had changed since he’d been asleep. Kitsune's normal life spans are a touch shorter than humans, which would make Kazue’s twenty years roughly equivalent to a human’s twenty-one or twenty-two years. “Your second one started showing up when we were working on your foxfire, and there were hints of the third one while we were working on your magic. When you moved your avatar into my lap earlier, all three were fully manifested.” And it was interesting to watch them sort of phase into existence like that. He’d experienced it himself in a few of his avatars; after all, he’d tried out pretty much every race advanced enough to take part in a significant civilization for his avatars; but never seen tails come in so fast on someone else.

Kazue frowned at him. “You still should have told me sooner! Just for that, I’m going to punish you!” She grinned evilly at him and pounced, doing her best to ‘smother’ him with her tails. “Bwahaha, the floof of the tails shall conquer you!”

Mordecai let himself be conquered with only a token show of resistance, trying to not laugh too much before retaliating with tickling. Kazue was as vulnerable as he’d suspected. Before too long their play slowed down, ending up with limbs entangled as they cuddled on the floor. He let himself enjoy the soft warmth and peace for a little before stirring to ask. “So, despite everything, we don’t really know a lot about each other’s pasts. Want to tell a bit of your life story, or shall I? I kind of have a lot technically, but I think a lot of it can be skimmed over.”

She thought about it for a moment and answered, “You should go ahead. I want to know more about my mysterious husband.” She smiled somewhat wistfully. “Not too much mystery about me, but I’ll tell that short story after you tell me more of yours.”

He snorted a touch at that. “Sometimes mystery just means that a person is hiding the fact that they aren’t actually interesting. And I am interested in you.” Mordecai lightly poked her nose. “But very well, I’ll start. Mmm, my story begins somewhere around our own dungeon, seeing as how my core was pretty close to directly beneath yours when Moriko stumbled onto me. I believe my start was rather higher up on the mountain than yours. Normal dungeon stuff, grow fast as I could, defending myself, et cetera. Cultivated some Kobolds as inhabitants, learned some nasty trap-making from them, got a touch curious about their whole idolization of dragons thing, and then got visited by a group of explorers lead by a summoner with a dragon eidolon.” He smiled wryly. “So I have to admit, my natural theming came through mostly because of a strong initial impression of ‘dragons are cool’. Which they are. So, this little adventuring party had no trouble conquering my little dungeon, and I have to admit that I was a little panicked at that point, but turns out this group specialized in living dungeons.”

A chuckle escaped him at that point. “I was, of course, hardly their toughest challenge. They talked with me for a while; well, mostly at me since I didn’t have an avatar and making signs is not terribly efficient. They gave me some tips and some warnings and after a while, they left me some books and assorted scrap materials I could learn from and said they’d be back to check up on me. After that, I created my own version of our dual path setup, though at the time my constructions were a lot cruder for selecting a path. I wasn’t giving a choice either, I was selecting the path. Both were mostly copies of each other, just one was ‘shouldn’t be lethal without bad luck’, and the other was ‘I don’t like you, die’.” He toyed with her hair thoughtfully. “I think I like your setup better, and I’m keeping my side low on lethality too. Hopefully, we won’t need the third route we’ve gotten started, but in my experience, it is an inevitability.”

Mordecai shook his head to clear off gloomy thoughts. “Anyway, so that was the start of things. I took the advice I’d been given and built up more interesting floors. I was cooperative when others were willing to be so, deadly to the occasional invasive monsters and the greedier adventurers. The place was a lot wilder back then, based on what you and Moriko have said.” He frowned slightly, seeing Kazue looking uncomfortable. “What’s wrong?”

The kitsune sighed. “Sorry, I know it’s kind of what’s necessary sometimes when you don’t get to live someplace safe, but I don’t really like the idea of having to kill people. I get it. We’re a big target for people who want to capture a core or the occasional crazy who really hates living dungeons. But just because I know I may have to do it, doesn’t have to mean I like it much. So, I’m not really upset, it's a part of who you are and what you had to do to survive. Just ... it doesn’t sit entirely well with me.” Then she gave him a brilliant smile, emerald green eyes shining amid the current wildness of her red hair. “I am really happy that you like what I’ve done though.” She finished by leaning in to give him a quick kiss. “Go on, continue.”

He nodded a little. “Alright. Well, my first avatar was a drake, of course. I eventually evolved it into a small dragon, and was growing my avatar bigger every time I had enough floors, but the occasional visits by more conversational explorers made me very curious about the outside world. I’d been able to make a fully awakened avatar for about a year before I committed to it, dismissing my normal one before putting in the effort to create the new form. I made a human avatar not too dissimilar to my current form; I'd seen my summoner friend using his magic enough times during his visits to make my avatar into a summoner as well. After all, I wanted a pet dragon too.”

His voice grew a bit wistful. “I can’t remember all the details of my life since then. Even a core’s memories grow indistinct over time, and I had to sort of fold and compact most of my memories anyway. I just can’t process it all until our core is bigger. But I spent a lot of time adventuring after that, learning all about the world. Every time an avatar would reach the peak of its potential, I would travel back home to draw that avatar back into myself and spend a year generating a different avatar to begin anew. In addition to keeping life more interesting, it’s a great way to grow as a dungeon as well, pulling all that power and experience back into yourself. There are a million different stories in that time of my life, but just fill in stuff from some of the less outlandish stories you’ve heard about adventuring bands and you have the idea. As for the stuff involved in my getting sealed away – I think I’d rather not get into it right now. You got the gist of it from Ozuran’s visit. Which makes it your turn.”

Kazue squirmed a bit, ducking her head. “Um, okay, but first, I wanted to ask something. You know how you said ‘our core’ a moment ago? But when we first started this a couple of days ago, you were talking about how you might figure out a way to separate our cores and create a new dungeon nearby? I think I like sharing a core and dungeon with you a lot more. I know it hasn’t been long, but I think I’d miss being like this with you a lot, so at least consider not worrying about separating our cores?”

Oh, she was so sweet, and her feelings were straightforward and pure in their honesty. And as he had already come to realize, he was just simply happy here. “I think I can promise that separating is far from my mind,” Mordecai replied as he let his feelings flow across their link. “I’m a touch too old and jaded to promise that there will never be a time when either of us will change our mind, but I certainly don’t see that happening, and I will work towards keeping us all happy together. That includes you too, Moriko.”

His words interrupted the monk trying to sneak up on him, who then pouted and sighed before simply stepping up to the pair cuddled on the floor. “That’s not fair, being able to just see everything at once.” She sat down on him, forcing him to roll onto his back to make a comfier seat. “Good morning Kazue,” the half-elf continued, blatantly ignoring him to lean over and kiss the kitsune instead. Then she thought of something and frowned at Mordecai. “Hey wait a moment, if you can see anything from anywhere, does that mean you can look up my dress?”

The question caused the ancient, experienced, and supposedly wise dungeon avatar to blink. “Huh.” He replied before testing the thought to be sure. “Why yes I can.” came his answer, as he smirked at his wife. That was the first time he’d seen her blush. Kazue’s skin started turning interesting shades of red a moment later as she caught on as well. Funny, he’d never even thought of doing that before.

“Pervert dungeon,” Moriko muttered with a heatless glare. Uh-huh, like it was his fault. He didn’t believe her accusatory look for a moment and simply reached up to pull her down for a kiss, finding her lips much more welcoming than her expression had been a moment before.

“Good morning, Moriko,” he said once their lips parted. “And I hereby promise to never peek at any of our visitors ever.” His gaze switched between them for a brief moment before asking with slightly overdone tones of innocence. “Is there anything else you want me to promise?” They both gave him a look, but the silence was telling, and he just grinned at them before switching topics. “Anyway, Moriko’s here, so why don’t I recap what I just told Kazue while we move to the cavern? Kazue can tell her story while we all work on my ideas, and then it’s Moriko’s turn.”

This time it was Kazue who murmured “Pervert dungeon,” echoing their wife. But she and Moriko both nodded at the idea and they all got to their feet and straightened their clothes before the trio headed to the second-level cavern.