No Need for a Core?

“Akahana is still outside meditating, but everyone should be ready soon.” Mordecai replied. “Here, let me set up an illusion.” This was going to be easier than what he’d done for Moriko previously, they’d grown since then and he had access to more complicated spells. Also, he wasn’t having to keep it up while they were walking. So he took a small table and used it to create an image of the entryway, and he’d update the focus as they progressed into the next room. And unlike before, he’d even be able to provide sound.

And while he was doing this, he was keeping track of Kazue. What he’d given her was roughly the equivalent of three to four ‘late night brews’, the sort of thing guardsmen and scholars alike used to keep alert at unusual hours. He just took that concentrated tea and herbal blend, and concentrated it more, which was relatively simple with dungeon magic, and barely used up a trace of mana in the long run since the energy was staying inside. His only loss here was entropic.

The woman had then yawned scarce an hour later. And when she was confronted with something that made her nervous, didn’t have to overreact to cope with it. That pretty much confirmed it. He’d wanted to see her reaction without her knowing what it was supposed to do in order to keep her reactions unbiased. Not normally a safe practice, but there were advantages to their sort of avatar, in the worst-case scenario everything would be fixed by dawn, and none of it would affect her core.

And her core was what had suddenly pulled everything together for him. Supplementing her core’s focus for her avatar’s meant her avatar physically couldn’t provide the attention she wanted to have. Everything else just started falling into place as a pattern, enough for him to go chasing down that memory thread to find the matching pattern. It had come at a small price for him, he could only know so much and there was now noticeably less room in his core, but he was willing to delay a project for this. If he recalled too much, he would have to start erasing memories or knowledge. There was a backup of the folded knowledge, or rather he was running off the backup as the original copy was in Moriko’s ring still, but he’d rather not take the chance.

That was going to need a serious talk later, Mordecai wasn’t going to bring Aia into this unless Kazue wanted to later. His ability to help Kazue was limited, but fortunately, Moriko’s parents should be able to help provide a better solution. “Head feeling better now, Kazue?”

“What do you mean? Wait. How?” He could feel her surprise, quickly followed by confused happiness.

“The full explanation will take a bit, but I have some answers to questions you didn’t know you had. And we’ll need Moriko’s parents to get you something better than a bitter brew.”

Moriko’s thoughts interjected into theirs. “I have no idea what you two are going on about, but if it made her life that much easier, then I’ll do what I can to help.”

There were significant advantages to being able to feel each other's emotions. It’s part of what made trust easier overall. And he might have a slight edge at the moment, given their guilty feelings earlier over being upset about how quickly he told them things. At least here they’d known he was not telling them something immediately.

It was also a lot faster than verbal communication. There was scarcely a hint of a pause in him setting up the table and sitting back down. But then, for the sufficiently perceptive and experienced, that was enough. “Oho, what were the three of you talking about behind my back?” Aia murmured with a teasing smile. Of course. This was the woman who had slid a telepathic message into the middle of a sentence without the advantage of a Core or any sort of bond. He needed to remember that this communication channel was not immune to detection, and he was pretty certain Aia had done so just by paying attention, no magic senses required.

Mordecai and Moriko managed to pull off expressions of innocent confusion, but Kazue looked guilty as sin. Calmer and better focused she might be, but the little kitsune was still herself. “Erm,” she said, trying to find a sentence to follow that with, but Aia waved her off with a laugh.

“Don’t worry about it. Whether dungeon matters or marriage matters, it’s your affair. But it is a warning, you three need practice if you want to pull that off without being caught. Could be a social gaffe in the wrong situation, or blow your cover. Now, let’s see what they’re up to, yes? Oh, before Akahana returns, Mordecai, how many tails does she have?”

What kind of question was that? Puzzled, Mordecai opened his mouth to respond but found he didn’t have an answer. He tried to pull directly on his core’s memory, but even that recall seemed to not have a good focus on her tails somehow. There was no hiding his confused expression, and Aia smirked. “No? How about you, Kazue?”

The redhead frowned. “Well, she has, I mean, um, wait. That doesn’t make sense. I mean, I’m sure she has more than one, but-”

“Tsk tsk. Not even knowing how many tails your mother has. How shameful.” She giggled, enjoying herself in a way that ‘The Matriarch’ wouldn’t have done. “But I am not surprised. After all, a druid knows how to live as part of the world around her. And that often means being unnoticed. And a really, really good druid can be noticed just enough to not stand out the way being completely unnoticed might make her. A gap can be obvious after all.”

Oh Hells. At a guess, Mordecai figured he’d probably known how to do that himself at some point, but right now he hadn’t known it was possible. He didn’t even have enough information to start calculating what it meant power wise which was worrying too, but the answer came a few moments later when Kazue’s mother returned to the dungeon, Casey the Cassowary following behind. Right now, Akahana was not hiding anything about her presence and was once more in her kitsune form.

Her seven-tailed kitsune form.

Mordecai felt an edge of panic. Sure, Princess Orchid was a six-tail, but she was a young six-tail. There was a difference between having power and knowing how best to use it. From what he had learned of Kazue’s clan, a seven-tail kitsune could easily have a few hundred years of experience. And there was a good reason he’d have refused to have Aia take the combat path, even alone. Mordecai spent a small burst of mana to create a clear message for all the combat-oriented inhabitants. “Slight change of plans. Challengers are still friendlies, but the power estimate has gone up. Don’t hold back against the seven-tail, and that includes you Zushi. Just be careful of the little girl, she’s the most fragile of the group.” He didn't have time to fix anything better than that, if he'd known before she'd gone off to meditate he could have fine tuned things to try and cope.

The group formed up, with Paltira and Xarlug in the front, Orchid behind them, Takehiko and Shizoku side by side behind the princess, and Akahana taking the rear guard, deadly bird by her side. Kazue was staring at the image before her despite also being able to watch directly, and a slightly confused Moriko was watching with interest.

The first room gave them a little bit of pause as they encountered elemental rabbit monsters, but a single casting of an elemental ward on the party managed to render them all effectively powerless, while the physical attackers were swiftly dealt with by the front liners, and Casey taking care of a few that tried to sneak up from behind. The results of a low-level monster being kicked by that bird were, well, messy.

And neither Akahana nor Orchid were fooled by the looping passages and found the hidden, correct ways forward in a single pass. Everything up to Zushi’s room was just a slaughter, and the number of spirits waiting to be respawned come the dawn started growing quickly.

Zushi fared rather better since he wasn’t holding back, but the group was impressive. Paltira simply leapt from the entrance to land on the opposite side of the giant rabbit, quickly positioning to be able to flank with Xarlug. Their blows landed almost simultaneously, Paltira’s fist slamming against one side and the naginata slashing at the other. While far from deadly for him, that was also far more than the boss bunny could just absorb, leaving a deep bruise and a visible slice.

And now they got to see the effects of the attack Mordecai had speculated about previously. Zushi inhaled, hard, and it began to pull everything towards him. Not just physical stuff, traces of mana and life force peeled off of everyone in the room too, which the black rabbit immediately used to begin healing himself.

“Oh, absolutely not. This is not a first-floor boss.” Akahana growled, then gestured sharply. The ground rippled then buckled and rose under Zushi, tossing him to the side and interrupting his attack. “Everyone, head to the exit!” She called out as roots erupted around the rabbit, who had landed on his back but used the momentum to roll back to his feet. The roots latched onto Zushi and attempted to burrow into his flesh, seeking to drain blood and life directly. The rest of the group started forward, but the boss wasn’t done yet.

He performed a leap as impressive as Paltira’s, even more so given his bulk, and landed in their path hard enough to cave in the ground, causing a ripple of tremors to spread out from his impact point. In the brief moment that it took the rest of the group to recover their balance, Zushi started inhaling again, only to be interrupted by a cassowary kicking the side of his head. This was immediately followed by the earth below him erupting into jagged spikes. Casey had leapt over the shock wave, while the earth around Akahana had simply refused to be affected by the tremors.

It didn’t go well from there. Akahana and Casey focused on locking down Zushi’s attempts to attack, Paltira and Xarlug flanked him again and then Orchid and Takehiko showed off their specialties. Orchid’s focus was on precision, timing the flow of battle to aim a narrow beam of ice directly into one of Zushi’s eyes. Takehiko had a more straightforward and dramatic twist on his spellcasting: One of his tails flicked foxfire at Zushi, only he’d laced a spell into the ball of energy, causing it to first impact with its own fire before erupting into a focused blast of electricity.

Mordecai was in shock as his raid boss went down a short while later. Zushi could absorb a lot of hits, but he could only absorb so much at a time and was simply overwhelmed. Shizoku stood back and watched for now, given her role as support, but her presence had at least given Mordecai something interesting to work with. Her little slime familiar had a magic affinity and had helped her resist having life and magic energy pulled from her by Zushi.

The second floor did not fare much better. As soon as it was clear that this was an environmental challenge as much as a combat one, Akahana took the lead. “Follow me, and keep the monsters off of me.” Mordecai could barely feel the magic she was using as the ground simply responded to her will. The smooth glass floor took on texture, becoming an easy path for the rest to follow. They hadn’t even reached the cliff before it started reshaping itself into a gentler, wider stairway.

Xarlug kept to his naginata for now, its reach allowed him to cover a fair distance, but Paltira switched to a set of throwing stars with an enchantment that brought them back to his hands after hitting a target, or hitting a surface if they missed. He didn’t miss very often.

Orchid and Takehiko kept themselves to foxfire attacks for this section, each ball more than enough to send a RabBat tumbling out of the sky. As for the stalactites and stalagmites awaiting them atop the cliff, Akahana brute forced a path. A 20-foot wide path of rock abruptly shattered, leaving a straightforward path. Swarms of the smaller vampire RabBats still tried to use the remaining cover to get close, but Casey had very sharp ears. Akahana responded smoothly to the bird’s cries, and more crystalline rock shattered. Only this time it was in a small explosion at the center of each swarm, the shards obliterating them.

Nothing else went any better for the dungeon. Mud solidified into rock steps, winding narrow paths reshaped themselves into a straight, wider path. The cramped tunnel maze expanded into a comfortable size that went straight forward. Momma fox was showing off to her little girl.

With most of their forces obliterated on the way there, Hildegard had few monsters to protect and heal. Akahana directed the short battle, Takehiko and Orchid leading off with bolts of fire and ice that immediately shattered the shield around the carbuncle hard enough that the backlash cracked the gem in her forehead. By the time she had recovered, the red-furred kitsune was in front of her. “You are a sweet thing, but a defender and healer without anyone to defend or heal is not much of a threat. Stand down.” Hildegard’s ears drooped, but Mordecai mentally reassured her that it was okay, so she crouched down and did not try to stop the party from passing through as the door behind her opened.

For the third floor, Akahana decided to step back and let the others have more of a turn. “Shizoku dear, why don’t you break up the formations?” Was the druid’s only suggestion. The pale-haired little witch smiled maniacally and decided to show off what her alchemy could do. Mordecai’s earlier command had prompted the laganthros to use troop formations double the normal size, but that didn’t help the first tightly organized group much when a firebomb landed in their midst. They cracked the orderly formation of sword and shield, letting Paltira and Xarlug smash their way in. The archers behind them at least got off a few shots, but the kitsune casters immediately retaliated, and the archer group was annihilated by twin fireballs.

His troops showed off their training, and by the time the party made it to the second room they had switched to using a mix of melee and ranged skirmishers, none of them grouped up to be targeted with area spells. This made things more time-consuming, but none of the melee could close without getting annihilated. Shizoku also had magic at her command, so the three younger spell casters got in some moving target practice while under live fire conditions, having to keep moving themselves to avoid the incoming arrows. They still took more than a few grazes, and a couple of arrows had to be pulled out, but their own magics helped protect them from the full force of the arrows that did hit.

In the third room, they switched again and were using the unfair tactics Mordecai had suggested they practice. Unfortunately, that was less than a week ago, so their tactics were not perfected. Hidden melee and ranged alike were just a little too predictable, with more than one gunner, archer, or mage getting tagged as they popped out from behind cover before they could get a shot off. Not a single melee made it past the wariness of Paltira, Xarlug, or Casey.

The fourth room tried simply overwhelming fire. All of the troops were ranged of some sort, and as soon as the party was entirely in the room, they all jumped out from behind cover and let loose. This was their most effective tactic so far, but the staying power of Akahana’s elemental ward mitigated the effects of the spell blasts. The bullets and arrows were more effective, and Shizoku actually went down briefly, but she was still conscious. While she hastily pulled together alchemical reagents and swallowed the resulting elixir to start her body healing quickly, Takehiko and Orchid retaliated. A violent ice storm swirled into existence over almost half the cavern, pelting the laganthros with razor-sharp shards, while on the other side, Orchid threw out a bolt of lightning that chained off of its targets, jumping from one poor victim to another.

Once the room was clear, they tended to their wounds, applying herbal poultices and bandages to more shallow injuries, and using a bit of magic or alchemy for anything more grievous. Then they moved on to the fifth room, which they found empty, except for a single sign. “Added to the boss battle.”

Bouncing Betty proved to be a challenge, though unfortunately not a terribly dangerous one in the end. Her mobile fighting style left Xarlug unable to engage with his naginata at all, so he tossed it behind him and hastily unlimbered his bow. Meanwhile, Paltira and Casey moved to engage the boxer bunny as she threw her long ranged sonic punches at them, refusing to get locked into a stand-up fight. This meant that they had to deal with the traps hidden throughout the room, and after the third trap had exploded, leaving both of them with scorch marks despite their best efforts to dodge, Akahana focused her attention on creating swarms of small plant and rock summons which she sent off running throughout the room as sacrifices to trigger the traps ahead of time.

This left Takehiko, Orchid, and Shizoku to focus on the incoming fire from the various hidey-holes spread throughout the chamber. They each created magical barriers to protect themselves with and retaliated with their foxfire. Spell casters of most other races would have had to resort to short bows or such to conserve magic this way, but for a kitsune throwing foxfire was no more tiring than throwing a stone.

Dodging arrows while trying to keep away from two high-speed attackers proved beyond Betty’s abilities to keep up. Once Xarlug landed a solid strike, the arrow slowed her down enough that Casey and Paltira were able to close and flank her. Neither escaped without bruises and cuts of their own, the shock wave of her punches was no joke.

Patching up after this battle was a bigger job, and they were happy for the rest area at the start of the fourth floor. They took the opportunity to clean up more thoroughly and get something to eat, and just take a breather.

Mordecai sighed and shook his head. “They are tired and bruised, but they still have reserves of both offensive and healing magic.” He looked at Kazue. “Your mom is scary by the way. She’s still holding back a lot. I suspect she’d have been faster soloing this without a group and worrying about giving everyone a chance to contribute.” He could have tried to contest her when she took control of the environment on the second floor, but aside from the fact that this would violate the very idea of a fair challenge, he wasn’t sure he would have actually won that contest.

Kazue buried her face in her hands for a moment, then looked back up as she took a breath. “I had no idea. She was just mom, and Casey was just our friendly pet bird. I can tell you all the places she likes to have fingers slide up under her feathers and give scritches.”

“And I am being shown up by Paltira here,” Moriko added. “I mean, we have different fighting styles, but the man is fast. And he has healing prayers!” she cried out, pointing where the monk had laid a hand on a small gash on Orchid’s leg, which quickly closed up as the area glowed slightly. “That’s so not fair!” Mordecai was reminded of Kazue’s complaint about his tails when he’d shown off, and the idea that they were rubbing off on each other amused him.

At least the path of destruction was releasing waves of mana into the dungeon, and their inhabitants would reform the next morning, which meant they’d have a chance to learn something from their defeat. “Well, I guess we get a little break while they rest.” And he was no longer satisfied with giving Akahana a normal staff, he needed to do something special. But not a specific enchantment, the woman could probably create better ones herself. Hmm. He had a little bit of time to think about it at least.