No Need for a Core?

Moriko took a breath to calm herself down, she felt slightly nervous asking this for some reason. “Well, I’ve had a lot on my mind recently, and I think I need to sort some stuff out, only I am not certain what I need to sort out yet. So after dinner and everyone heads off to bed, I’m going to take some time to myself and meditate, and I am not sure for how long. Which is where I would like to ask a favor.”

They were both watching curiously, and Moriko cleared her throat. “So, when I first ran into Mordecai, I meditated next to his core while he was crafting the ritual. It was a very interesting experience, and I think I would like to try that again, but with your combined core. It would be your presence, but without interacting. It honestly just seems like the most peaceful place for me to meditate. So I am asking that you guys could create a simple path there from my room?”

Kazue was still processing the thought when Mordecai responded with a soft smile. “I am okay with that if Kazue is. Did you want to settle our core into your lap like you did before?”

The kitsune twitched, her hair and fur poofing as dungeon instincts reacted to the idea, and then she rolled her eyes in frustration at her own reaction. “Of course it's okay if it’s you, love. Um, the bit about holding the core made me a touch jumpy, but I am sure it’ll be fine if Mordecai is sure it's fine.”

“I think you will enjoy it, actually,” Mordecai murmured, then looked back at Moriko. “I think we can make the pathway easy for you and give you some room to comfortably settle, and you’ll have all the time you need.”

Moriko nodded with a smile, then moved on to a topic easier for her to discuss. “Thank you both. But now I want to ask a different question.” Her smile widened to a grin. “Mordecai, I hadn’t thought about all the things that would be involved when you said you mushed a bunch of avatars together to make one super-body, but there are a few shape-changing tribes other than kitsune, and there are a whole lot of interestingly built races out there. So, what else might you be hiding under that skin?”

Mordecai gave her an amused look as he replied in a dry tone. “You don’t want to know everything, especially not at once as I was in a hurry and just made it barely functional, knowing I could borrow aspects as needed once I got better at controlling my shape changing. As for the question I think you are actually asking, sorry, there were no functional changes involved with that part of the body and I wasn’t rebuilding in order to entertain you, so there’s only one model.”

Moriko pouted in mild disappointment while Kazue’s expression cycled through confusion, enlightenment, curiosity, and then a disappointed look of her own. Moriko was amused that her attitude was rubbing off on the once shy little kitsune. Then her attention was drawn back to her husband as she started feeling a playful maliciousness coming across their link from him, and found him tapping his chin thoughtfully.

“Although, that is certainly not the only way to ‘play’. And now that you’ve caused me to give it some thought, I may have an idea or two that will keep you both entertained before we go out to visit with our guests again.” Moriko narrowed her eyes as his weight shifted subtly, and tried to anticipate whatever he was going to do.

Then Kazue yelped as shadows grew over and clung to her body. Moriko stared in shock for a moment before trying to leap back and away from the table, but all she managed to do was land with her butt on the floor as something pulled on her leg. Looking down she saw a long tendril of hair wrapped around her ankle and flowing across the floor to behind Mordecai. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” She muttered.

The table and chairs suddenly vanished, and Mordecai looked over at Kazue with a smile. “Sorry love, I had already taken my weight off my seat.”

But the kitsune ignored him, looking at Moriko with a giggle before biting her lip and schooling her face to a brief blankness before she then shifted into an overly dramatic expression of pleading desperation. “Oh Hero! This vile villain hath captured me! Save me please, and I will do anything I can, to show you my undying gratitude.” As she spoke, she breathed heavily, and somehow her robes had become loose enough to show a bit of cleavage as she did so. Moriko was growing very, very curious about exactly what was in those books the girl wanted so badly. Also, Kazue’s struggles looked distinctly ineffectual.

Still, time to play her part. “Worry not fair maiden, for I shall free thee from the clutches of this monster!” Moriko kipped up and rolled forward, twisting as she did so to land her free foot on the tendril of hair. Now she had the leverage to twist, pulling her foot free and smoothly rolling that momentum into a spin kick aimed directly at Mordecai’s head.

He barely swayed to dodge the kick, then he caught her leg while still looking at Kazue. “Oh, villain is it? I suppose I should look the part then.” Moriko heard Kazue gasp in delighted ‘terror’, and when Mordecai turned to smirk at Moriko, she could see that he now sported a pair of rather sharp-looking fangs. Oh. My.

But he wasn’t done yet. “You dare challenge me? Then behold the power of my true form!” The man could barely hold a straight face as he said that. Then a pair of giant, dragon-like wings bloomed from his back. His grip loosened on her leg as he gave a slight shove, and she took that momentum to spin away from him and dance back a few steps, taking up a proper stance now.

This also gave her a chance to get a good look at what was going on. Moriko recognized what was going on with Mordecai’s shadow, because of course a devotee of Ozuran would have studied those forms, if he went to train at a monastery. It was also an advanced form of the technique that the god had gifted her knowledge of a while ago. The hair thing was new to her, but the world has many unusual things in it, and now she saw a tail lash behind him as well, looking thin and whip-like. Had the man formed tiefling avatars in the past too? “Look, my lady! The villain is in truth a fiend of the nether realms! I shall vanquish him immediately!” She cried out, trying to not laugh.

Then Kazue yelped somewhat indignantly at a light cracking sound, and Moriko realized that Mordecai had used his tail to spank the kitsune. “You think to vanquish me? You can not even stop me while I torture her for my amusement.” The shadows dragged Kazue behind him, where his hair and tail also wrapped her up securely. All that Moriko could see was her head, tails, and hands. Then Kazue’s expression distorted before cracking into gales of laughter. It seems that the ‘torture’ was going to be tickling her senseless. This also meant that he was free to face Moriko directly.

“I shall put an end to you, monster!” Moriko called out and charged. In the end, she failed to ‘rescue’ Kazue of course, but that wasn’t really the point, was it?

It was about time to go out and be proper hosts again, so Mordecai sighed and pulled himself from the pile where the three of them had collapsed into a cuddle at the end of their horseplay. “Come on, you two.” He said, helping pull them both to their feet, then put away his excess limbs. It had been fun to cuddle them in his wings at the end, and their playtime had given him some food for thought regarding his shape-shifting.

That had certainly not been his actual ‘true’ form of course, that compilation was nightmarish, but he’d been given enough space to select and pull out one aspect at a time. Working that slowly would have rendered his shape-shifting useless in real combat, but for that sort of playtime it came in rather handy. He needed to change that limitation tomorrow after everyone had left and he had more free time. It was deciding on what changes to make that took forever, so if he took some time to nail down the exact hybrid forms he wanted to use and memorized them, he should be able to swap faster.

Akahana was in her tailless form while tending to her cassowary in a corner where the laganthros had taken it upon themselves to build a nest for the giant bird. He was glad they were confident in making decisions like this on their own, which he attributed in part to Kazue’s influence. Mordecai knew he was better at being approachable than when he had first started, at least when he put effort into it, but he knew that his first kobold tribe had been much more cautious about taking actions they weren’t certain he wanted. Then again, maybe that had been due to the nature of kobolds? He’d only retained the impression and lessons learned, not the full memories, so it was a bit hard to directly compare.

Mordecai did receive a bit of a suspicious look from his mother-in-law, which he suspected was due to the more relaxed mood of the trio now. She was wrong, or at least not quite right, about what they’d been up to, but he wasn’t inclined to disabuse her of the idea either. If she had any issues, that was between her and Kazue unless Kazue wanted his help. Which didn’t seem necessary as Akahana quickly shook off that protective reflex and walked over to greet her daughter. “Have a good talk then?” she asked in a teasing tone.

“Yes, actually.” Kazue said before briefly sticking out her tongue. “And I want to move up our own talk to later tonight. These two both have some mediation stuff to do, and that way we won’t hold up everyone in the morning.”

Akahana looked a touch surprised at that, then shrugged. “Alright dear. Your mother is always ready to lend you her ear.”

Kazue tilted her head slightly as if she’d just realized something, but for the moment only said “Well, let’s take our places at the table, the others should be joining us soon.” While the three of them had talked and then played, everyone else had a chance to bath, rest, and mend or replace clothing. They’d made sure to even provide some extra robes if anyone needed them, but it looked like everyone had come sufficiently prepared.

Mordecai observed their guests as Kazue took the lead, rising from her seat to get everyone’s attention. “Welcome brave adventurers!” She began with a grin. “You have successfully conquered the dungeon, and received your promised reward, though I must note that you did lose out on some treasures with how reckless your last fight was. Who knows what rare, ancient spells might have been written inside those tomes and scrolls? Perhaps a future party will be able to find out.” She was earning some pointed stares with her presentation, though Akahana appeared a touch embarrassed. Mordecai wasn’t certain how many of the spells he’d made available as potential loot were actually rare, but he had done his best to select spells that had not been widely spread back in his time.

“We do have a bit of a consolation prize however. I have just added a bandoleer with a half dozen invigoration potions for each of you to your rooms. They are based on our unique honey so unlike many potions, they taste good!” Akahana’s expression was a delight to Mordecai as he watched the druidess put together the creatures she’d seen and where the source of the honey was probably from. It didn’t take long for her to get over the weirdness of honey from a creature that was half rabbit, she’d likely had to eat weirder things before, but people often acted strange about certain foods. That was a habit he’d had to create for himself, especially when he wanted an avatar to be able to live life as a member of the species it appeared to be. Mordecai’s own squeamishness around ‘gross’ foods was nonexistent as a default, since his baseline instincts and habits were so different.

“Now, while our friends are bringing out your dinners, we would love to hear feedback from you about your experiences. All complaints are of course Mordecai’s fault, for a sweet little innocent thing like me couldn’t possibly have had a hand in anything that would cause others distress.” Kazue fluttered her lashes in an overly dramatic fashion before grinning and taking her seat.

Orchid spoke up first. “I would like to talk about one thing in particular. Your golem, it punched me in the back of the head!”

“Elemental, actually.” Mordecai corrected. The mistake was understandable, most earth elementals had a rough shape formed of more boulder-like materials, while Enki’s appearance was that of a smooth humanoid shape sculpted out of a single piece of stone. That had come as a surprise to him as well, and Mordecai suspected it was due to him pushing the concept of being able to move through worked stone upon the forming raid boss, with Enki’s form adapting its appearance to be more like that same material.

“As to your concern, I would point out several things. First, I had by that time already had the opportunity to analyze everyone’s resilience, and the auras of any armor they were wearing.” He smiled slightly. “Sorry Princess, I am well aware that you had enchanted armor on underneath the robes, and a pair of short swords as backup weapons.”

One of the side effects of growing strong enough to contest against the wild creatures of the world was an automatic adaptation to hostile energy, slowly concentrating one’s life force to make a person more resilient. His cute little bookwyrms might have been mostly troublesome to this group, but a direct blast of their paper-flechette breath weapons would have shredded your average farmer or city merchant. A traveling merchant was more likely to have overcome the right sort of adversity to develop their own resilience, if not as much so as a person who sought out trouble.

“So by my estimation, you would have been out for no more than ten minutes. Second, I knew Paltira was there, and while I am certain he would have rushed to the side of any of your companions who was downed, I am confident that your consort has you at the top of his priority list for his healing prayers.” The pair blushed slightly at that, which was rather cute in his opinion. “Third, Akahana had only used a little healing magic so far, so she could have jumped in if needed. And finally, I was monitoring the fight. If Enki had somehow managed to bring you to the brink of death, I could have been at your side and cast my own healing magic in only a few seconds.”

Admittedly, pulverizing the brain into complete mush would be beyond the magics yet at his command, even when applied instantly, but Enki’s full-strength punch catching the princess unawares had barely been enough to damage the back of her skull. There simply wasn’t enough margin of error for that blow to be instantly lethal to her. “If that had been necessary, I would of course have marked you as being out of the fight and officially ‘dead’, but the reality is that the chances of you dying there were lower than most humans have of dying when tripping over a cat.”

Orchid looked mollified at that answer and settled back into her seat. Xarlug spoke up next, and his expression was much happier than the princess’s had been. “I thought it was fun. It’s nice to be able to just take things head-on. Following her highness about I always have to be careful about making sure I am only hitting the right things. Running your dungeon, I get to know hitting it is always the right solution.”

Right, mental note: time to start working on creatures where hitting it harder made things worse. Hmm, there were splitting oozes, and he had some interestingly unique slimes to start with. But he needed a floor plan to match, so he’d need to talk with Kazue later so they could plan.

“I am glad you enjoyed yourself. Come back in a few months, and you’ll find some new challenges available!” Which also reminded him to try and develop waypoints for repeat customers. That bit of teleportation dungeon magic was beyond them right now, but if he made sure to keep it in mind and make suitable side rooms to put them in, they’d be able to acquire it eventually. Hmm, his past self had made sure to keep the general knowledge of them available, but the specifics weren’t in his head, so Mordecai guessed that it might be a while before he could implement them.

There was some specific feedback Mordecai wanted, however. “Akahana, I’d like your opinion on that final fight. I’m also curious as to what else you had up your sleeve.”

“Heh, well, by the time we got to the boss, I was a little frustrated. I had gotten to show off for the previous floors, only to be stopped cold because of the way you made that library. And then when you snatched Shizoku like that, I admit I panicked a little. I mean, I knew Kazue would never let something bad happen to her, but the rational part was overridden for a bit. And when I recovered from that, I was kind of angry that I had panicked and just wanted to get the whole thing over with. Sorry I went a bit overboard, but I am also kind of impressed you pushed me to go so far. Oh, as for my remaining big tricks, I had two combat form spells and a multiperson healing spell still. They just hadn’t been useful yet.”

That made sense. Combat form spells were a useful tool for a spell slinger to be able to just start smashing things for a while, but unlike innate shape-changing abilities they generally made it impossible for a caster to keep using other spells while in place, so were most often used when all else had been exhausted. She and Orchid had switched to a barrage of lesser spells that they could keep up for a while, rather than letting Horace get into melee range, switching to a combat form would have negated that tactic.

“Very well done, all of you.” Mordecai said, turning his attention now to look across all of his guests, then focused on the youngest. “And Shizoku, I know you are annoyed about being taken out like that. But especially given your age, you did remarkably well. I normally wouldn’t have let anyone so young run the dungeon as a combatant, but your grandmother clearly saw you as competent for battle.” Well, he’d let an orc her age run it, but given that most of them were at their full height and greenhorn warriors by the age of 12, their short-lived race was a bit of an exception.

“Your inexperience did show a little, but in the end, it was bad luck that did you in. Which is the nature of battle, one takes opportunities where one finds them, and when Horace saw you backing up to the wall, he saw an opportunity to take you out of the fight.”

“I guess.” It was clear that the girl was struggling to overcome her reaction to her defeat, the little kitsune definitely did not like to lose. “Um, thank you for the staff though, I really like it, and I think I know what enchantments I want to put on it.”

“Excellent. I was hoping you’d also let me look at your little slime familiar later too, I saw a bit of what it can do, and I am really curious. I’ve never seen its like before.” He smiled at her. “I am sure I can arrange a gift for each of you in exchange for your time.”

The thirteen-year-old girl seemed startled that someone wanted to look at her slime friend, then she looked down as she nodded. “Yeah, sure, we can do that. He likes to eat about anything. I mean, Bip isn’t really a ‘he’ of course, but I kind of feel like he’s a him, you know?” The prideful little kitsune seemed suddenly shy, confusing Mordecai until he felt amusement from both Moriko and Kazue.

“You just showed genuine interest and curiosity about what is probably her best friend in the world.” Kazue’s thoughts came across their link, followed by Moriko.

“And in the backlash of her dealing with her emotions after losing too. Perfect timing to be super nice to a fresh teen like that.”

Oh hells no. Mordecai was thankful that the girl child was going to be occupied with her training and far enough away to not casually drop by. He also knew that the best thing he could do was basically nothing, and he just hoped she got distracted by a cute boy before too long, which was generally the way these things work. In the meantime, however, “Kazue, when I go examine the little slime, you are absolutely coming with me and chatting with the girl, since you already know her.”

Out loud he replied “Excellent, we can do that after dinner. Speaking of, it looks like dinner is ready. Does anyone else have anything to add before we begin?” When no one added anything, the laganthros began serving their food.