No Need for a Core?

Moriko’s encounter with Ricardo had left Kazue absolutely ecstatic, but Mordecai was more focused on the news that the local government and the associated church wanted to officially have a liaison with them. He didn’t exactly mind, but he didn’t recall that happening before. Then again, there apparently had never been a dungeon in Kuiccihan’s borders before. And he could see it even making things easier for them.

It was also interesting to see how well even full-blooded orcs had integrated into this society. And when Moriko had run into the Oni bandit, neither she nor Kazue had seemed even slightly surprised to see that mix of races. Mordecai was pretty certain that the kingdoms in his time had been less inclusive. They’d also been less stable, well, excluding Danuana of course. The elven kingdom had actually grown after he went to sleep, it had been a few weeks' journey away before. But then, none of his wrath had been aimed at them, border growth in the wake of that event made sense. He was really looking forward to more detailed history books so he could find out what else had changed.

But while he was asking for more books and rare metal samples, Kazue had focused on something else entirely. Mushrooms. Well, mushrooms and other fungi, but mostly mushrooms. “I take it you have decided on something for the fifth floor?” He asked, as she was specifying to Moriko that lightly dried was okay so long as the spores were viable.

“Yep!” Kazue’s avatar had been dancing around excitedly during their entire exchange with Moriko. “I want to make sure I know all the ways mushrooms can work normally, especially any glowy or already magical ones, but then I’m going to make them bigger!” He could already feel her growing out her path into a giant cavern. “Big enough to be houses and stuff for laganthros. I want to have a whole village in there, and they can really live there too. I’m going to make the whole quest thing way more free-form. Oh, I’ll make sure there are enough scripted ones so that everyone has a chance to do something, but I figure I’ll mostly just give the residents some tokens, and you have to present five or more tokens to get past the doors at the far end. You earn tokens by helping people out, and it can be for real issues! Like if one of our mages is working on a new spell, if an explorer can help them out, they get a token. We have alchemists and smiths and all sorts of people training and experimenting, so helping out our fledgling community is the challenge. Or you could go rescue a ‘kitty’ stuck in a ‘tree’. Of course, that kitty could be a fifty-pound caracal on top of a thirty-foot-tall mushroom.” Kazue’s grin bordered on evil with that statement.

Mushroom stalks tended to be smooth, and any mushroom that tall would have to be pretty wide and have a tough outer skin. It would be difficult to climb, to say the least. Mordecai grinned back at his wife. “I have become a bad influence on you. Just make sure you have hiding spots for a healer and a mage for any quests that are hazardous.”

“Ooh, that works as backup, I’ll do that too. I am going to set the story of those sorts of quests so that there’s someone available to give them a safety token, like a slow fall token if you have to climb like that.” Huh, he wouldn’t have thought of that. Treasure is something you gave out after it's earned is what he had learned, and had never needed to deviate from that as far as he could recall. But it made sense in this context, you only got to keep the single-use treasure if you succeeded in the task.

“I like it. That’s good thinking. And getting our visitors to help our rabbit tribe grow in knowledge and skill is pretty clever.” Kazue beamed at his praise, and her happiness proved rather infectious as he found himself just smiling back at her because he couldn’t help it. “Though I think it’s going to be a few weeks before we get those samples. Why are you growing the cave now?”

“Well, I was thinking that our people might want to design their houses, so this would give them time to do some planning and maybe make some mock-ups or framing or something. Depending on what they do I might displace it with a growing mushroom, or try and grow the mushroom around their structure like a tree can grow around fences and stuff.” The kitsune could not sit still right now, she’d been walking around their room during this entire conversation, and changing it up with occasional skipping and the occasional bit of humming and dancing.

“You do things so differently than I would have.” He said softly. “And it’s a good thing. Keep growing and being you.” The Laganthros respected and liked him, but they adored her, and she returned that level of affection towards all of the rabbit folk. “But now it’s my turn to start planning.”

The first monster that came to mind was a touch infamous, screaming mushrooms were not particularly hazardous but tended to panic delvers as well as draw the attention of other creatures. Still, that seems like a bit of a boring life for a creature that would eventually have more of a mind of its own. It had not been an issue for him, he had not lavished so much personal care and affection upon his inhabitants, but Kazue’s personality caused her to treat every creature as a person, so eventually they all would be fully formed people. Some might not be as bright as others, especially those that had been nonsentient to begin with, but they would all develop full self-awareness in time.

So, more mobile sorts of mushroom creatures. Or maybe a hybrid creature? The image of a little rabbit with a mushroom growing out of the top of its head came to mind, and it made him laugh a little as he passed the image to Kazue. Mordecai briefly considered offering up that modification to some of the tribe as well, but decided against it. The bunbrarians he could set up as a mantle, a role they could put on or take off, but this would be a physical modification that wouldn’t blend in well with the rest. They didn’t want to start making a bunch of different tribes, he already felt bad about making Betty stand out from the people most like her.

Hmm, now there was an idea, if for the future. He sent out the concept of making a second tribe that was the same size as Betty, and told them to think it over. It wasn’t something that they were going to do immediately anyway.

Now, mushroom monsters. Or maybe he could think of another mantle that wouldn’t physically change a tribe member? Oh! Fungal-focused druids were a thing, that would be even better. He sent out that idea as well, and he felt a few curious minds considering it. This would be more of a training path, but he could help them along it as well. Alright, he had fungal druids and mushroom cap rabbits who could be companions, though he hadn’t decided on any special abilities beyond the obvious one of being able to explode out spore clouds. Hmm, what else might he want them to do, and what other monsters might he want to design? So many options.