No Need for a Core?

Kazue examined the artwork on the dungeon entrance with a critical eye. Well, ‘eye’, as in her core's focus. She’d pushed the entrance out, right up to the boundary, so she couldn’t use her avatar to look at the outside of the doors while they were closed, or the outside of the doorway at all. She had decided to go for grand appearances, which started at the foot-thick archway in which ten-foot tall double doors were set. Though being a dungeon seemed to give her a little bit of an instinct on how to put these sorts of things together, balancing steel doors had been a pain. And Mordecai had refused to help, calling it another 'learning experience'. He was right, but that didn’t keep her from being annoyed about it.

Bah. She gathered her thoughts back together to continue her examination, making sure she hadn’t missed anything. At the very top of the arch were three dragon heads, to represent the primary creator god Zagaroth. On either side was a nine-tailed kitsune woman, the right one in front of a symbol for the sun, and the left one in front of a symbol for the moon. Amirume and Mericume were the two he first invited, becoming foundational members of the primogen gods that he had tasked with building this universe. After the first age of creation, most of the primogen deities had dispersed to found their own realms, and after the second age of creation, they turned their attention to building their own pantheons to lead. However, some did choose to remain independent of such ties and the two kitsune goddesses had chosen to live with Zagaroth. They, along with their children, formed the Empyreal Pillars.

Next beyond the two goddesses were their respective children, Sakiya and Ozuran. Past Sakiya was the elven goddess Dana, and several smaller figures to represent the rest of the elven pantheon. This pattern continued on both sides to cover as many deities as possible, with the dwarven pantheon being the start of the left side. This part had taken a long time as she and Mordecai put their minds together to try and remember every deity they’d ever heard of, and they most likely would have to tweak it later. There were also some, like Dormire, who were deliberately excluded, whose followers would not be very welcome here anyway.

Once Kazue was satisfied that she’d gotten everything as correct as she could manage, she turned her attention to the doors, mentally opening and closing them a couple times to make sure they were well-balanced on hinges set into the archway. Hopefully, no one was watching and getting weirded out by them apparently moving on their own. Her dungeon senses were weaker around her borders and didn’t go very far.

While the doors themselves were steel, that steel was coated in a protective resin, and over that she’d put a thick coating of bronze. Not something that could be done in a normal workshop, but dungeon magic let her do all sorts of things not normally possible. Kazue worked both sides of the door so that there would be visible designs whether the doors were open or closed. The bronze itself was deeply etched, in places deep enough to show the steel beneath, and then the designs were filled with colorful crystalline enamels.

These formed fanciful images that hinted at what was inside, and Kazue carefully aged the bronze to create noble patina of variegated green, reddish-brown, and bluish tones.

She was going to have to change it every time they completed a floor that introduced new elements, but that was fine. Kazue found herself being particularly thorough about inspecting her floors for design inspirations. This was partially because of her realization of just how much slower it was to build deeper floors, and she was a little bit bored by not being able to do the big, important, and sweeping changes she'd been learning to enjoy.

It had been a whole week since their first dream date with Moriko, but they didn’t really know what she was up to, because she was being secretive and amused about something. They’d also completed all the changes Mordecai had suggested, and she’d even gathered enough mana to push down to the fourth floor last night. But she didn’t know what to do with it, and her husband was insisting that she be the one to start the initial design process. And part of her appreciated it, she knew he wanted to give her the chance to experience the creative process here and give her more confidence in her creations and abilities. But it would also be nice to have him do it for her this one time at least. Hmm, wasn’t this the sort of thing that occasionally got Moriko grumpy with him? Kazue admired a lot about the woman, but maybe that was a trait she shouldn't pick up. Mordecai deserved more consideration for working hard to be thoughtful and hands-off instead of just taking charge. Though it could be fun when he took charge...

Blushing, Kazue brought her thoughts back to what she was doing and moved her perception in to sweep over the entrance. Overall she was rather happy with the work she’d done, it was much more inviting. She’d expanded on Mordecai’s idea and had created corridors to multiple shrine areas, offsetting each either down or up so that she could create more expansive shrines and put in benches and stuff. He’d also taught her a little trick, and now she knew why she’d never actually seen a shrine to Li. The eternal child did not, could not have shrines of his own. As Li was unable to be aware of his own particular state of divinity, all shrines to him were hidden with a particular trick in their crafting that, while not directly magical, did call shadows to help cloak the figurine of a ratling. As those figurines were always placed slightly behind friendly gods who included shadow, night, or darkness in their domains, only those who knew how to look would actually see them.

But despite that addition, her work was still incomplete; too many of the alcoves for pantheons she knew less well had generic statues standing in because she didn’t know enough about the deity’s appearance or even symbolism to do anything more. But she was determined to fix them all eventually. She did still have some pride as a shrine maiden after all.

“Hey, are you guys ready for some visitors?” Moriko’s amused mental voice cut into Kazue’s introspection, and along with Mordecai she turned her attention to their distant spouse, who was opening her recent memories and her senses to them. Okay, not so distant, she was maybe half an hour away. And she had a lot of people with her!

“Eeep! What’s this? Wait, why are there so many kids with you? What’s going on?” Kazue felt a bit of panic welling at the thought of so many people in her dungeon like this, but Mordecai’s presence helped give her a mental anchor, and he spoke up.

“Interesting surprise, love.” He was taking advantage of Moriko deliberately bringing her recent memories to the front of her mind to get a rough overview. “Gifts and trade options to start relations, some teens to escort younglings so they can have a chance to run through the puzzle path, start some habits for the future, oh you’ve done excellently. Thank you.” Then he paused, and his voice grew a little hesitant. “Ah. And your parents are here with your siblings.”

Kazue’s scattered thoughts froze. She was going to meet Moriko’s parents. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? She had no idea. Then she realized Moriko was laughing at them mentally and wasn’t doing a good job of not laughing out loud at the same time. Ohh, she was going to get that half-elf back for this. Now she was determined to make a good impression and focused her thoughts to a more private link with Mordecai. “I’m going to dress our avatars.” She wasn’t asking, she was simply informing him how it was going to be, and he wisely conceded with grace.

By the time Moriko and her merry band showed up, wagons and carts in tow, Mordecai and Kazue were standing in front of the open door to the selection chamber, dressed in finery. The kitsune had crafted a silken green dress with gold trim, with a design that was a call-back to her shrine maiden dresses, both acknowledging her past while showing that she was moving in a different direction in her life now. She also gave herself a little gold diadem inset with purple sapphires.

For Mordecai, she decided to lean into the duality of their existence and dungeon. His outfit was a military-style uniform in black with purple undertones, and gold trim. She’d briefly considered giving him a gold neckchain instead of a matching diadem but realized that she was being petty and it was Moriko she was annoyed with. And to be fair, she wasn’t actually mad at the mischievous monk, she just felt the need to return the one-upmanship with a bit of flair.

For a final touch she gave herself a magic staff of smooth white wood capped at each end with gold, and an ornate silvered dagger at her hip. Mordecai received a silvered temple sword on his left hip, and an ornate pistol on his right. Kazue smirked up at him after she finished checking him over. “Mmm, quite intimidating. I need to dress you up like this more often.” That thought made her happy, and she kept it close as she turned to face the entrance right before the doors swung open.

Mordecai covered his amusement at Kazue’s wandering thoughts, keeping his expression warm and welcoming for their guests. Moriko entered first, followed by her parents and youngest siblings. He was pretty certain that she had not been wearing that form-fitting red cheongsam for most of the trip here, and given the gold and purple embroidering, he was pretty certain she’d had it customized while at home. It did look stunning on her. It also made him realize that the humans and elves seemed to have at least somewhat adopted styles that he’d previously only seen kitsune wear. Well, it had been a long time.

“I’m home,” Moriko said simply as she walked up to them with a smile and gave each of them a warm kiss. “Pervert dungeon. And pervert kitsune.” Her mind whispered to them with a note of self satisfaction before turning back to her family. “I would like to introduce you all to my husband and wife, Mordecai and Kazue, the twin dungeon cores of this dungeon. My loves, I would like to introduce my family. This is my father, Jhaeros, my mother, Kaoru, my youngest sister, Hainako, and my youngest brother, Galan.”

Mordecai bowed slightly as Kazue curtsied. “We welcome you to our home, and look forward to having you as our guests,” he said to them.

Kazue beamed at their in-laws. “And I am very much looking forward to getting to know my new family!”

“We’re very pleased to meet you as well.” Jhaeros began, but whatever he had planned to say next was interrupted by Kaoru.

“You were really rescued by my daughter from a curse of eternal slumber?! And you were a lonely reincarnated soul who was rescued from her doom by them? Oh, how romantic!” The older half-elf practically squeed. Mordecai glanced at Moriko who held a mask of innocence, even as Kazue was responding excitedly.

“I know! I had no idea what to expect! But it’s been really fun and so exciting since they showed up, even if Moriko had to lure that pack of bandits back here. The dummy was going to try and fight them all by herself.” The two women were quickly bonding, and neither he nor Jhaeros had any idea if that was a good thing.

Mordecai's thoughts were then interrupted by Galan, who had been eyeing his temple sword. “Hey, Mister Mordecai, are you a temple monk too? But what about that gun?” The young teen looked like he was having to hold back his excitement.

“Just call me Mordecai, after all, we are brothers-in-law now,” He responded with a smile. “And it’s a bit more complicated than that, but yes several of my previous avatars have trained in those arts. As for this pistol, I am still mastering it. Aiming it isn’t too much different than a small crossbow, but quickly reloading it is trickier.” He quickly found himself being drawn in to talking about weapons and showing off some basic forms for the boy.

While he was doing that, Hainako had gotten drawn into Kazue's and her mother's conversation, which had drifted to talking about different herbs and plants somehow, and Moriko stood with her father for a short while before raising her voice a little. “Okay, we can continue this later, but there are other guests waiting their turn. We couldn’t have all our high officials coming, so our high priest decided to represent Riverbridge today, and yes in part to verify that everything was fine. But he’s very old and should not be kept waiting.”

Mordecai nodded, then glanced around thoughtfully. “You are our guests, and if you want to just wait to the side, we can escort you to our private quarters to rest, but we don’t have a lot of entertainment set up. If you would like, we can instead show you the Path of Peace, the challenges set up by Kazue. They are perfectly safe, but the later puzzles require some thought and work.” He absolutely was not going to allow Galan on the Path of Battle, though he suspected the teen would be eager to try if given the chance. After a moment of discussion, the family elected to try the puzzles, if for no reason than to keep their youngest occupied.

Once the four had begun down that path, Moriko stepped outside to wave someone in. The ancient-looking elf walked in a few moments later, followed by several guards carrying sacks and chests. “Greetings dungeon souls, my name is Traxalim,” he said formally. “On behalf of the city of Riverbridge and the Kingdom of Kuiccihan, we welcome you to our lands. We come bearing gifts to show you our goodwill.”

Mordecai couldn’t help staring at the priest, and not because of his elderly appearance. The way that mana had shifted its flow when he’d walked in told much about him, and by Mordecai’s estimation the elf was pushing the upper limits of power that a mortal could hold and still be called, well, a mortal. Also, his phrasing was almost exactly what had been used back in Mordecai’s own time, like he’d had it memorized.

Traxalim returned his gaze and smiled slightly. “I know the face you wear, for my family has kept it safe in painting and sculpture. Welcome home, Grandfather.”