No Need for a Core?

While Kazue focused on her library, and Moriko indulged in a bit of sparring and training, Mordecai decided to work on some experimentation. When his original dungeon had been this small, he hadn’t thought of trying stuff like this, and by the time he might have considered it, he had more powerful tools available. But right now, he had to be efficient.

He started in the warrens, for with their new influx of minor inhabitants and guests there was a need to accommodate everyone. The first adjustment was to designate a section called The Den, which would be on the outskirts of the warrens. This would keep the scent of meat away from where it might disturb the more herbivorous animals. While inhabitants did not need to eat, guests did, and they had multiple carnivores to take care of, and the inhabitants would want to eat, which was also important. So rather than making food directly as he had been doing, Mordecai took some time and mana to create what amounted to a meat dispenser, along with some kibble to make up for what carnivores would get when eating the guts of their prey. Then a little more time and effort to create several eating areas all tied to each other to register how much a creature has eaten, and limit the dispensation. Again, this only particularly mattered for the guests, but there were the caracal cubs and some of the other creatures that had been brought in, as well as unknowns in the future.

Once he was satisfied with that, it was time to fortify the warrens. The entire point of a semi-isolated ecosystem was that visitors were not supposed to head off this way, and some of the wild plant samples were going to be perfect to help with that. His plants of choice were blackberries and quince, though that second one was new to him. But it seems the area had a lot of foreign people set roots down in the aftermath of his wrath. Both grew into fruit-bearing thorny plants, which was what he needed.

This also started his experiments. The first set of plants he started growing in separate open spaces of the warrens, to make sure that they grew healthy by themselves, and give him more seeds to work with. Then he set some of the seeds next to each other in a different chamber and tried to get the two plants to grow into one. For most plants this wouldn’t work very well, especially ones this distantly related, but he was trickling mana into the pair of thorny bushes. The results were pretty decent in his eyes, though some of the new plants mutated in ways he wasn’t expecting.

The fruits of these mutations were not always appetizing, but by the time he was done experimenting, all the warren entrances on the first two floors had backup protection of needing to work through the thick, thorny bushes to get into any of the chambers. The first line of defense was still that they were small with entrances hidden both by placement and by self-closing ‘doors’ that did not respond to those who did not belong.

For the third floor, he chose a less dense growth pattern, as the laganthros were much bigger and taller than most of the other rabbit creatures. Thankfully Zushi’s defenses would allow him to ignore the thorns on the first couple of floors if he chose to wander into the warrens. The lit, open spaces down here were also larger, and their occupants were already beginning to experiment with making their own buildings and figuring out an architectural style, though the first crude ones were a bit mismatched. Now he’d created a pattern, and associated the density of the thorned plants with the inhabitants of that floor, so he could hand that off to his core’s more automated processes. It wasn’t perfect, but it was what he could do for now.

By the time Mordecai was done experimenting with these, Kazue had created the first of her tall ‘outdoor’ spaces, which was perfect for what Mordecai wanted to do next. They had seeds for some trees, and to his understanding trees grew into each other much easier than smaller plants. He unmade a small selection of the mana-construct trees to plant seeds and grow their first real trees. Once he’d fed them enough mana to get a first batch of seeds, he backed off and let them continue to grow normally.

Mordecai had three major goals in his hybridization project. The first was to generate trees that would grow quickly but would be dense and hard, with straight trunks but an uneven swirled grain structure. No normal agriculture could produce these, but with dungeon magic involved, almost anything could happen if you can just figure out how. Starting with several trees that made good normal lumber for different purposes gave him a variety to mix and match mutations with. Eventually, he got what he wanted, but the end result also caused all the branches to grow at sharp, straight angles, creating a rather unnatural appearance with clusters of small oblong leaves at the tips of the branches. These trees would be difficult to cut down, and even harder to carve smoothly, but if done correctly could provide excellent lumber for anything from building construction to making hard shields and arrows. The uneven grain that made it difficult to work with also made it difficult to chop through or otherwise damage.

His second goal was to make fantastical fruit trees. Here he had to be a touch more careful, crossing the wrong two species could end up with toxins normally only found in the sap to end up in the fruit, or even just provide distasteful fruit. In the end, he did have to remove a few of his experiments as too prone to accidents, but eventually, he had some interesting variants. There were now half a dozen species that bore 3 different types of fruit each, and another half dozen with unique hybrids. The first set he didn’t think would breed true outside of the dungeon, but the latter set just might, especially if given a couple of generations for the changes to set in. Once he had trees that normal bees could visit, Mordecai then made variants with fewer, thicker branches and larger, more firmly attached flowers, specifically for the bunbees to visit. After his little gift last night, he wouldn’t be surprised if honey became something traders came to trade for.

Mordecai’s third goal was to experiment with the more spiritual and magical aspects of trees. Many trees have special qualities that make them the bane of specific creatures, and he hoped to cultivate stronger effects combined into one tree type. Unfortunately here he was less successful, and it took him a lot of analysis to form a hypothesis as to why. Any time a tree became something that was not manifestly the same species of tree, the properties disappeared. His best guess was that these special qualities were not actually innate to the species, but a resonance of unique circumstances that imbued the tree, such as the properties of wisteria against demons. Any tree that was not wisteria, even if descended from it, would no longer match the resonance. Unfortunate, but some trees did have spiritual powers all their own, perhaps he would be able to find some that could be cultivated and enhanced by dungeon magic.

By the time he was done, more than a few laganthros had become curious about what he was doing and began asking questions. Mordecai felt satisfied with his work, so after he explained what he was doing, and made sure to moderate their anticipation by making sure they knew that without his direct attention the plants would not grow so fast, he simply let them do as they will. Craftsmen were already beginning to develop their arts as various individuals sought fulfillment and entertainment beyond their duties, especially as the dungeon was not receiving visitors frequently, so he expected them to be able to make all the tools they needed for agriculture before too long.

Kazue was far from done with her project, and Moriko was still training, so Mordecai simply brought his avatar back to their room and began reading the genealogy that Traxalim had gifted him with. He would in due time fully analyze it so that it would be preserved, but first he wanted to read it properly. After Moriko had returned from her training and cleaned up, he set aside the book for now and joined her for dinner.

“Please, you guys don’t need to do all this when we don’t have guests,” Moriko tried to protest, but the laganthros denied her request.

“We want to do this. We have been provided for, and want to provide in turn.” came the reply as a more senior member of the ‘kitchen staff’, Dairell, shifted his attention to her. “You may not be one of the cores, but you have status as a contractor, and more as chosen family, and so we honor you in turn as one of their equals.”

Moriko frowned a little. “But still, it’s not like we’re royalty or anything.” She turned towards a suspiciously amused-looking Mordecai. “And what do you have to say about all of this?” She gestured towards the spread of food on a thankfully smaller table than the feast table out in the main hall.

Mordecai just shook his head. “I understand what you are thinking, I had similar thoughts after I first explored the outside world, but I think it best if they explain.” She frowned at his response but turned back to Dairell to listen to what he had to say.

“To the outside world, you may not be considered exalted, but to us, you are married to the emperor and empress of our world, our god and goddess even.” He held up a furred hand to forestall any objection. “We know they are not truly gods, not in comparison to the mighty entities that have visited, but still, they are the creators of our world and of our species. They are the reason we exist, and they both work to ensure our world becomes better, and enable us to grow and chose who we will be. Yes, we are assigned duties initially, and granted the skills we need to perform them, but we have all that we need in order to become more. Furthermore, while we are aware that the nature of our relationship with the dungeon influences our feelings of loyalty, I think even an objective point of view suggests we have a fairly good thing going here. So long as our dungeon does well, we will do well, and be immortal along with it. All of our needs are provided for, and we have what we need to provide for our own wants. Why should we not do what we can to honor them? And it would be unconscionable to not treat you as their equal.”

“Um, I guess,” she replied, then looked back to Mordecai, still feeling uncertain and a bit confused over the situation.

“I understand that it is different, just think of it as all of the most sincere aspects of loyal retainers and active laity. We dungeons are not gods, but we are creators and rulers of our realms. Even in my early days, before interacting with outsiders, I understood the sense of responsibility in taking care of my inhabitants. And we don’t need to interrupt Kazue to ask her thoughts, can you see her as thinking of all of our people as her friends?”

That was true, Moriko couldn’t see the bubbly kitsune as considering any of these rabbit people as someone other than her friends. “Alright, fair enough. I guess I just have to get used to it.” She hoped she didn’t get too spoiled by all the red carpet treatment. “Now, I saw that you were reading the book that Traxalim gave you. You didn’t just do the dungeon thing with it, did you?” She grinned at him. “I think I like knowing you can be sentimental about things like that. Now, tell me more about what Kazue is doing that’s taking her so long. I was kind of looking forward to having dinner together.”