No Need for a Core?

The day after Moriko arrived at her monastery, Mordecai and Kazue were watching a group of seven guardsman trainees with feelings that approached horror because of how embarrassed they felt for the group. The seven would-be delvers were accompanied by an experienced sergeant, upon his oath to only provide advice and guidance since that would otherwise push the group size above their limit, and a laganthro healer as the group had none. If the healer had to intervene, that person would be considered ineligible for further participation.

By the time this particular group made it to the boss room, four of them were considered ‘out’. The first mistake was at the first battle, when Mordecai sent out a single blunt-horn dire rabbit. One of the people in front laughed at it and started to turn his attention away to make a comment. It was at this moment that Mordecai found out what could cause Kazue’s temper to flare and the dire rabbit reacted to her surge of emotion without direction, leaping horn first into the face of the offending trainee, leaving him with a smashed nose and a minor concussion.

Kazue’s emotions had immediately swung to guilt, and then slowly shifted over to match Mordecai’s confusion at the extreme lack of aptitude presented by this group. Mordecai was careful to never present them with more than two dire rabbits, or one if it had a magic attack. They were equipped well enough, had at least a concept of what they were supposed to do, and were not completely incompetent with their weapons and shields, but they had no teamwork. The various personality traits causing the issues soon became apparent, ranging from a need to be the hero to reflexive resentment for anything that might be considered an order from a peer.

“I think we should stop them now,” Mordecai said, and Kazue nodded her agreement before they shifted their avatars to the entrance to the boss room.

“Um, we’re going to ask that you quit before the boss. We don’t want to see any of you get seriously hurt, and only these three can fight anyway.” Kazue said, gesturing at the two women and 1 man who were not considered ‘dead’ out of the original set of four men and three women.

The sergeant nodded. “I agree. You lot are done. And I’ll knock you out myself if you try and push it any further.” There was some grumbling, but that subsided when he glared at them.

“I’ll escort you out,” Kazue volunteered. “I think Mordecai wants to talk to the sergeant here.”

Oh yes he did, and when the group had moved ahead enough Mordecai asked: “Okay Sarge, what is going on here?”

“Yeah, sorry about this. It’s a couple of things really. We don’t have a lot of excess city guardsmen, the escort for the big visit was a mix of city and caravan guards. Trade with you guys is going to boost our economy even more, but also possibly bring some unwanted attention. So we’re spinning up more recruits now, and when we have enough to not worry about shift coverage, we'll send proper teams your way. Which brings us to this lot.” The sergeant sighed. “You probably guessed this already, these are some of our worst recruits. Not for lack of basic skill, but because of, well, you saw them. Hopefully, this will humble them a touch.”

Mordecai shook his head. “It’s a good thing we’re so nice. A less ethical dungeon might have ensured ‘accidents’ just out of annoyance. Oh, the visit has been a net positive for us already, but not by a lot. A quick boost might have seemed tempting.”

It was one of the problems with younger dungeons, especially before their first awakened avatar had experienced the world and come back. Dungeon instincts were not always the best long-term solutions, and brute force methods could be so easy. He was glad that his first encounter with outsiders had been with a civilized group, before that he’d been luring in hostile monsters mostly. As far as Mordecai could tell, the only reason he and Kazue hadn’t seen any monsters was their proximity to both Riverbridge and the Azeria clan. Creatures of sufficient power and aggression to have been lured into attacking a dungeon would have already been hunted down.

“Yeah, I can see that. We’ll try to send you a better group next time, and I look forward to having enough time to challenge your dungeon myself.”

The walk back was a lot quicker as Kazue had temporarily opened up a few spots in the walls, so they were already approaching the entrance. “I look forward to it. And it’s fine to send us groups like this occasionally, it just slows us down a lot compared to a proper group.”

“Will do sir. You and your wife have a good day now, I’m going to make this lot camp outside, they need all the practice. And give my greetings to Moriko as well, I heard she’s off to the capital.”

“Will do Sarge.” Mordecai was amused at himself for falling so easily into this speech pattern. It was amazing how much influence the experiences of past avatars could still have.

And the value of that influence could not be understated. Even with the knowledge from his earlier visitors and his kobold tribe, he hadn’t really understood most humanoid races very well at the time. Mordecai had let the kobolds design most of his traps, and even with their innate knack for nasty tricks he had not seen the true power of things like arrow slits until he had visited a castle and seen the proper architecture of a murder tunnel. What you can do with digging and what you could do with proper masonry were very different.

Mordecai had grown to fifteen floors by the time his first awakened avatar had returned and integrated back into his core. By then he’d simply had enough raw power he’d not needed to apply all the nuances he’d learned in the outside world. He had been such a simpler creature in many ways before then. And even with all he knew now, given the presumption he had to restart from scratch, Mordecai was very happy to have had Kazue and Moriko by his side for this. It could have been so lonely to have started all over again with no company.

Once their company had left, Mordecai and Kazue returned to their private chambers to discuss their plans for the fifth floor. Kazue had already decided that she was going to arrange for a different sort of challenge. She wanted to create a village of some sort where there would be several ‘quests’ available, each quest providing an appropriate challenge, so any five quests would be able to get a group clear. This way people could take on the sort of quests that best suited them, which would allow her to present more physical challenges. The biggest question was what sort of fanciful landscape her ‘village’ was going to be. Once she settled on that, Mordecai would begin his design.

Later that evening, Moriko had switched out of her uniform and made her way into the city proper for a drink. Not that there wasn’t alcohol available at the monastery, but she wanted to be alone for a drink and think. She’d already meditated earlier, but a change of perspective could be useful too. This was also why she was avoiding all her usual haunts, and going for someplace a little more upscale. The more expensive drink and food were going to also help her moderate, since she did not want to get drunk, she just wanted to help her brain get a little bit looser and off the beaten track.

Unfortunately, even dressing more conservatively than normal for her did not keep her attempt to eat and drink alone uninterrupted. Moriko did not consider herself a great beauty, but she was pretty enough, clean, and alone. “Now, it’s always a sad thing to see a cutie like you sitting all alone. What would you think about a little company, eh?”

She hadn’t even finished her meal and this was the third approach she’d had. Moriko looked up with a sigh as she prepared to let him know she was not interested, but something felt a little bit off, and she took a moment to consider the slightly older human standing by her table. He was handsome enough, and the little bit of gray in his short-cut hair and neatly trimmed goatee didn’t detract from his looks, but there was something in his voice and the look in his eyes as he smiled that felt just a bit forced.

Moriko shook her head slightly. “You’re trying too hard, old man. You don’t mean it. Trying to prove you still got it after a breakup or something?” She grinned. “You know what? Have a seat and we can talk. Doesn’t look like my plan to drink alone and think is happening anyway. Tell me about your girl troubles.”

He looked crestfallen. “That obvious, huh? I guess I’m off my game, but it’s not that sort of trouble.” He gave a sigh and then grabbed a chair to join her. “But I guess I can talk. I am not really in the mood anyway, it was more habit than anything.”

Moriko snorted with a bit of amusement. “I hear that. I kind of fell into a marriage of circumstance, but I’ve dedicated myself pretty sincerely to it. It was hard to shake old habits at first though.”

Her guest gave a wan smile. “Oh there’s a woman I’d like to marry, but I travel a lot, and I wouldn’t feel right tying her down. We even have,” he paused with a pained look, “sorry, had a child. She passed several months ago. She was such a sweet girl too. Maybe I should have settled down and gotten married instead, had more time with them both.”

Oh, that sucks. Moriko tried to find some comforting words without sounding too rote, but what do you say to that sort of information? “I’m sorry to hear that. I can’t imagine what it’s like losing a child, though I recently saw a mother’s reaction to finding out her child is actually alive. My wife is trying to find,” wait a sec “her,” no, it couldn’t be “father...” Moriko’s eyes widened. “Ricardo?!”

“Kazue, I think I found your father-whoop!” The slightest slip of his expression caused Moriko to abandon her table in a leap that took her halfway across the room. She landed on her feet about the same time as the table landed on its top, and she wasn’t the one who had kicked it over. Right, a grieving father, merchant used to dealing with scams, and guy who was able to keep up with a seven-tailed kitsune druid. Moriko was pretty certain she did not want to find out what the runes on either of those long knives did.

“Are you trying to pull one over on me girl?” Ricardo growled, steel gray eyes hard with anger.

“Um, I don’t think he believes me, give me something to tell him!” Moriko kept her hands up as the rest of the patrons scattered or took up positions around them, trying to figure out what was going on. “Okay, I can see how this looks, I’m not saying Kazue didn’t die, I’m saying she’s, well, it’s complicated. And she’d like you to know you still owe her that last shipment of books?”

He sneered at that as he began stalking closer. “Trying to say you are married to my daughter’s ghost?”

“That didn’t work.” Moriko carefully stepped away from Ricardo as he tried to advance, she was not interested in getting close, and quietly settled into her shadow stance in case she needed it. “No, look, Lady Mericume reincarnated her, and Akahana already knows about this. Also, you’re the cute boy she seduced in order to get her hands on certain leaves. Wait, what? That’s what you two were talking about the other night?” It was already hard enough to keep two conversations running separately, her surprise caused Moriko to talk to Kazue out loud.

Ricardo’s expression was stunned, and his body began to relax, his hands dropping to his side, though old reflexes kept him from dropping his knives. “How?”

“It is sort of complicated, I will be happy to tell you about it, but the short version is that circumstances led to reincarnated Kazue, myself, and a guy named Mordecai getting married, and as a side effect of the circumstances, I can talk directly with both of them at any time.” Moriko paused. “Wait, this means I got hit on by my father-in-law.” And what was with the look being exchanged between those two orcs?

Ricardo winced a little at that. “Er, maybe you can not tell her about that part? She already got on my case whenever she caught word of my flirting.” He sheathed his knives then took a glance around, looking embarrassed. “Um, sorry about that everyone. My mistake. I’ll help clean up and pay for anything broken.”

Moriko sighed with relief as she relaxed. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that too much. You never fooled Akahana anyway, seems she has friends in your caravan. She had just been waiting for you to come to your senses, she’s currently planning on hunting you down instead, soon as she gets her garden in order.”