No Need for a Core?

Moriko lost track of time and distance as she ran, and even her wandering thoughts died down until there was nothing but the flow and rhythm of her breath and steps, chi flowing through her in perfect pace. Only when she saw the city walls in the distance did her mind focus on conscious thought again. If she could see Riverbridge, then the guards would shortly be able to make her out. She started slowing down her pace a little, and continued to gradually reduce her speed until she came to a walk about a hundred yards out from the walls. It was never wise to run up on a guard if you didn’t need to, and even from here, she could see that the guards had tensed up at the sight of someone running toward them like that.

When she’d gotten close enough that one of them could recognize her, a subtle ripple of relaxation went through the guards on the ground and walls alike. She greeted them and spent a few minutes chatting before continuing on in. It was nearly the end of the day and few people were entering the city at this time, so there were no delays beyond that. What would have taken two days of casual walking had taken her less than an afternoon to run, and she barely felt the fatigue. Moriko was looking forward to the run to the capital, she intended to push herself on that.

Both of her parents were at the shop when she entered, and the only customer at the time was an older woman who spent more time talking with them than shopping, but none of the shopkeepers begrudged her that time when they could afford it, and she always had the knack of coming by when there were few if any other customers.

After exchanging hugs and kisses with her parents, Moriko presented the envelope Mordecai had given her to her mother. “So, this an invitation to trade with the dungeon, there’s a medicine Mordecai would like you to work on for Kazue.” When her mother took the envelope there was a slight tingle, and based on what Mordecai had said before Moriko suspected that the envelope and letter hadn’t been completely ‘real’ until it had been claimed.

“Medicine? What would a dungeon need medicine for?” Her father Jhaeros asked while her mother was opening the letter.

“Honestly the details are a little beyond me, but her avatar is a copy of her original body, and she’s apparently always had this issue. I assume that Mordecai wrote down everything you need to know in the letter.”

“Mmm, yes, it looks like it.” Kaoru replied after scanning the letter. She then used a gloved hand to pick out the leaf that had also been contained in the envelope and sniffed it before she turned to the bookshelves to begin checking on the properties of the plant. A good alchemist or herbalist rarely relies only on information from a single source if they could help it. “And where did they get this leaf?”

“Oh, that was from Kazue’s mom, whom I guess she inherited this issue from. Oh! That reminds me, so Akahana, that’s her mom, is probably going to come by within a week or two to give you guys some plants. Probably including a couple of the ones that leaf came from. She’s planning on becoming more mobile, so wants to spread her own garden out before she hits the road to be with her lover. Speaking of whom, do you guys know a wandering merchant named Ricardo?”

Jhaeros answered while Kaoru continued browsing books. “Assuming there’s not more than one with a route through here, then yes. He comes by a few times a year.” He paused a beat as he put pieces together. “He’s Kazue’s father, I take it?”

“Got it in one Dad! Yeah, but he doesn’t know she’s been reincarnated, so if you see him before Akahana gets here, don’t let him leave until she gets her hands on him. If it’s after that and no one else has caught up to him, well, use your best judgment. But Kazue would like to see her dad again too. Alright, unless you guys have anything you need to talk about, I am going to head home and take a bath. I want to head to bed after dinner and get an early start in the morning. I’m actually on my way to the capital.”

“It’s a good thing I’ve already been needing to make extra lately.” her father grumbled with amusement.

“Mm, true,” Kaoru replied. “Which reminds me Jhaeros, you should do the mixing when we figure out what combinations might help the girl the most. I shouldn’t be handling such things too much right now.”

Moriko was almost to the door before she realized that their words had been aimed at her, and she spun back towards her parents who were both carefully pretending to not watch her. “Oh come on, another one?!”

Kaoru smirked a little. “Well, we have quite a few decades left before you can start calling us middle-aged, I think we can handle another little one running about.”

Moriko just shook her head as her parents laughed at her reaction. Half-elves who married as young as her parents had, had a lot of time to spread out their child-raising years, but it still felt weird to have another baby sibling on the way when Moriko was already 36. “You two shouldn’t have elf ears, you should have rabbit ears!” She muttered in mock disgust before stalking out to hide the forming grin. She’d never admit it to her parents, but she loved spoiling the little ones, which as eldest was absolutely her prerogative.

Later that night, Moriko was quite glad that she’d gone to bed early. She’d already been aware that her spouses had been enjoying themselves, but Kazue had very deliberately let that one thought ‘slip’ her way, and then teased her some more by not passing on what she saw when Mordecai showed off his new forms. All she knew was that Kazue was quite pleased, if a little jealous of all the forms he had available.

Mordecai was staying out of the games between his two wives, but he seemed rather bemused at some of Kazue’s reactions. Moriko suspected that the man underestimated exactly what a woman could find interesting, as long as she was already interested in the person. What was simply weird or odd on a stranger could become cute and attractive on a man you liked, it was rare for a guy to be so repulsive that getting to know him couldn’t overcome it.

Well, since Kazue was going to insist on teasing her like this while she was gone, Moriko decided she needed to start plotting revenge, as she had still not balanced the scales since their library date. She’d never really explored this sort of play in depth, but there was more than one way to seek variety. And there were a couple of ‘professionals’ she knew that might be able to point her to where she could buy certain items and maybe a couple of books. Moriko hated studying, but the other forms of learning about this topic were off-limits by her own choice, so if she wanted to surprise them, she’d need to read up instead.

Dealing with all that made for a more restless night than she’d intended, but it certainly got her motivated to be up before dawn and on her way. Part of her was kind of giddy over it all, for she was discovering something new. People who were going to be there for you, whom you were going to be there for, in return, it made for a different sort of dynamic, new types of games. Some of what they teased each other with and did would be insulting at best with people she knew more casually. Moriko felt safe to just do things, or at least try to, and trust that if she started to cross a line they’d let her know. That they trusted her enough that they’d let her push their boundaries to their limits. And all of that and more she gave to them. What Kazue had done with her in the library, well, she had anticipated only that she’d enjoy playing the part because it would make Kazue happy. As for how much she enjoyed it, well, it took her a bit to puzzle out that she’d only liked it so much because of how she already felt about Kazue. There were few if any of her former lovers that she could have surrendered to that way.

Anticipation fueled her as she wolfed down a cold breakfast in the predawn chill. Yeah, there was something she was missing, that still itched at her mind, but Moriko was also comforted by an awareness that it only mattered so much, that she would have to do something really wrong to not be welcomed back with warm hugs and soothing words. It made her steps feel so very light as she exited the town to the north, teasing the guards by leaping to the top of the wall and then jumping down to the ground before they could consider opening the gate. She was taking the more northern route today, the one she’d been avoiding when she stumbled upon a certain cave that changed her life.

Bellona tried not to fidget in her full dress uniform. The orc champion was fastidious about keeping her armor and normal uniform clean when possible, she didn’t mind that sort of effort towards keeping up appearances, but no matter how much she spent on tailoring the dress uniform always felt a little too stuffy and confining.

It didn’t help that she wasn’t just facing the elders of the Church of the Sun. No, for whatever reason she’d been called to the smaller Temple of the Twins. The relationship between the three churches of the Sun, Moon, and Twins was complicated, but walking the path of the twins was more difficult a balancing act than focusing one’s worship upon a single goddess, which gave it a somewhat elite status, especially as it was officially the church that the royal family followed.

And now this council she was seated in front of was formed from members of all three of those churches. At least neither of the Church of Passions or the Church of Shadows had felt the need to be represented here, whatever was going on.

“So after failing to capture this little ‘Urchin King’ that has been causing too much trouble, you were given advice from a random, possibly elderly kitsune, whose name you failed to even ask for I might add, to seek him out in the new dungeon, and you now want the church’s permission to go hunt him down?” The speaker was an elf priest of Amirume named Ualiar. Bellona presumed he also had a bit of gnomish blood in him, given how vividly blue all of his hair was, including eyelashes and brows.

“You’ve twisted my words.” Bellona forced herself to keep the growl out of her voice as she continued. “While I acknowledge my failures on the first two points, I am not seeking permission for anything. I am seeking guidance because I do not believe I have the knowledge or wisdom to choose a course of action. Even going alone, and assuming the kitsune’s words were true, it seems like an excess of effort to capture a single youngling who would no longer even be in the city to cause trouble by then. But there is some reason that prompted the man to speak to me. Maybe his words were true, maybe it was some attempt to divert my, or the church's, attention for some reason. I find no strong certainty in either direction. So I gave my verbal report and immediately wrote it up as well. That is all. I await direction.”

Today’s questioning had been going on for over an hour already, and she scratched at the back of her hand in irritation before she managed to make herself sit still again. Everyone in the room carried a faint nimbus that showed they were under the compulsion of truth-telling magic, but while making a false statement was impossible, asking an incorrect question was not, and the constant slight changes in wording felt like attempts to catch her out in some technicality. As if she had the skill to verbally spar with precise wordings like that.

A new voice spoke up, interrupting the current flow of the proceedings. “Alright, that’s enough. We can stop questioning the poor girl.” Bellona’s eye twitched. She was ‘only’ nineteen, but orcs were adults by twelve, and she’d been a blooded warrior at her full height by fourteen. Her species’ fast growth came with a correspondingly shorter life, but that was the way of this world sometimes.

However, she kept her thoughts to herself as the halfling who had spoken hopped down from his chair. Some tall folk found it innately amusing to see the shorter folk coming down from chairs not meant for them, but Bellona was already taller than everyone else in the room, and short adults like halflings and dwarves mostly just made her vaguely uncomfortable, like she could stumble over them without realizing it at any moment.

Of course, stumbling over this halfling would have ended poorly for her. Amator Helmbreaker was a champion of The Twins, and had been marked by the kingdom as a protector decades ago. His sigil had directed him to be trained by giants, and to her understanding he had been trained by five different clans before the sigil had marked his training complete. This had somehow garnered him the strength of a jotun, which is how he had earned his second name.

“I believe that I speak for the gods and the Kingdom alike in expressing my complete confidence in the lass. In her loyalty, in the truth of her heart, and in her general competence and skill.” He’d walked over to her while he talked, hands clasped behind his back. “Though, perhaps catching urchins is not quite your forte, eh?” Amator chuckled at his joke and ignored the peculiar looks he was getting. One of which was from Bellona. She felt eerily like some sort of trap was closing in on her.

“I do apologize about this little circus show. This was just a final test before we made one of a few decisions, and I am claiming the authority to make it.” There was a slight ripple through the gathered church members at his strange wording, and Bellona couldn’t blame them. She was feeling even more out of sorts than she had a few minutes ago, and it was making the itchy feeling from her uniform worse.

“I think we’ll be asking you to head to this dungeon and meet its cores and avatars. Yes, plural. There are two, Mordecai and Kazue. We’ve already gotten some reports, and they seem like a friendly couple, and possibly more than that as their contractor Moriko seems entangled romantically with them as well, but our nation does not have any permanent representation. So the crown would like to ask you to go there as our representative, with permission to negotiate should the need arise, and further permission and mild encouragement to become a contractor if they will take you. Furthermore, if you decide to go, you will be furnished with a small gift from the kingdom, some goods that are a gift from the kingdom to you so that you may negotiate a trade should there be something of benefit to you, and a strong suggestion that you figure out a gift that would be from you. We’ve dug into our archives to find reports from people who have traveled to the other dungeons, it seems written knowledge and rare goods are the primary desires for dungeons, especially young ones.”

Bellona’s head swam with the sudden rush of information and quick change in the direction of the conversation. “Um, My Lord, I don’t quite understand what is going on here, this doesn’t seem to have anything to do with what we were talking about before.”

Amator snorted. “Be careful whom you call lord, you might come to regret it.” He looked amused, Bellona just felt further confused. “Honestly, I don’t care one way or another, should you run into our little criminal mastermind, act as you find appropriate. However, what I just described was one of the paths that had already been decided on, depending on the outcome of today’s conversation. There’s something else that has caught my attention, and I think it’s going to create quite a delay in our plans.” She could feel the jaws of the trap closing in, but still couldn’t see it, let alone escape it.

“Tell me, my fellow champion, how many orcs have been marked as protectors of the kingdom?” His question was not helping her feel better, and she answered with a growing sense of dread.

“Just one.”

“Hmm, and that would be your cousin Kansif, correct?” At her mute nod, he continued. “Well, I have it on rather good authority that you are slightly off on your count, by about 50%.” The halfling’s smile was starting to look malicious to her. Then he unclasped his hands from behind his back and showed her the back of his left hand. It bore a sigil of a shield, marking him as a protector of the kingdom, and behind that was a mountain, representing the strength of the giants. It was faintly glowing, and her left hand began to itch like mad. “I think you should remove your glove.”

She ripped off the glove, not caring as the stitching broke under her rough handling. Upon the back of her hand lay a sigil with a nearly identical shield, surrounded by symbols representing fire, earth, wind, and water. “Come on lass, lower your hand so I can see.” Bellona numbly complied, her mind blank with shock.

“Oh, that’s a rare one, I’ve never actually seen it. But I do believe it means you are off to train with the Jinn. And for all four basic elements too! Congratulations, Lady Bellona. And I thought my training regimen was hard.”

Well, fuck.