No Need for a Core?

Mordecai was looking forward to the results of the negotiations Moriko had wrapped up last night. One of the merchants, a dwarven woman, had volunteered to be last in line because she had some cousins to go visit for her trade. It seems that clockwork-type automatons had significantly advanced, and she had some interesting examples to collect. He had seen and experienced living automatons before, and even had made a few avatars in their style, but those had trended more toward magical animation and less toward mechanical power.

Another merchant was going to take about as long to set up collecting and preserving samples from the ocean side. Something about that conversation bothered him however. The time scales felt off for the travel. He knew that the basic layout of the terrain was the same as when he had last been awake, with the Raincatcher mountains cutting an east-to-west line just south of the dungeon’s location, and the Crescent River to their east, flowing north from the mountains and then curving west towards the ocean, but some of the travel times didn’t feel like they lined up quite right. Those maps Moriko was bringing were going to prove quite useful to understanding the exact layout.

The other thing that caught his attention was how perfectly Kuiccihan seemed to fit its geographical borders. Again, he’d need maps to make sure he understood completely, but unlike the kingdoms in the area of his time, it was a single kingdom between the borders of mountain, river, and sea, and did not extend past any of them. There had been three with some significant portion of their territory inside those bounds, two of which had extended beyond the river to the north and east, and the third had wrapped around the western edge of the mountains into the scrub lands to the south.

Well, at least according to the last map he’d saved for himself. There were nine others, each about a hundred years apart, showing different configurations of political borders. They weren’t exact maps, just the general idea, though he was pretty certain he had detailed maps stored away in his folded memories. When they had grown enough, he was pretty certain that his historical knowledge would become a useful trade option as well, but unless it became relevant to his current life that information was of a very low priority.

But as excellent as all the other trades promised to be, the single juiciest bit had been a promise from Ricardo at the end of the night. He’d let Moriko know he had a spare adamantine dagger he was going to give them as a gift.

Spare. Spare. Mordecai was getting the feeling that this father-in-law was perhaps a touch well off. Moriko had confirmed that the metal was as precious as it had been in his time, with the price of an adamantine dagger approaching that of a full-sized sailing ship. Kazue was of no help here, she’d never paid enough attention, she just knew that her daddy was always able to bring her the books she wanted.

Not that their presence was going to be gentle on the economy, he’d already produced several mithral weapons for the Azeria clan, which was not much cheaper or easier to work with than adamantine. Fortunately for anyone trying to keep the markets stable, trading with the dungeon was going to be competitive for which rare materials or complex designs were reproduced, and they had to keep some capacity in reserve for dungeon challengers.

Speaking of whom, they had some visitors Kazue was supervising through the dungeon. The clan had sent their first set of trainees, though at least this set was somewhat more experienced. Well, the combat-oriented ones at least. The entire group consisted of six shrine maidens(who would be traveling Kazue's path), a priest, three warriors, a mage, and a hunter with a wolf companion. The odd gender disparity in the clan showed here with the priest being the only male in the group.

Kazue’s avatar was walking with, though not helping, the shrine maidens through the non-combat route, catching up with old friends. That group was evenly split between moon and sun shrine maidens, which he suspected was Aia’s doing to give near equal representation for Mericume and Amirume. The priest followed Amirume so that tilted slightly in favor of the sun goddess. They’d also brought some of Kazue’s missing books, which Mordecai had taken a peek at when they’d been placed on the donation tables. They were about the level and type of ‘dirty’ he’d been expecting.

She was also monitoring the other team with her core while they made their way through the dungeon. The kitsunes weren’t like the raw recruits they’d gotten from Riverbridge, being both more experienced and far better coordinated, but he doubted they’d clear the fourth floor, even without ramping things up. Still, the only way to know for sure was to see them try. And he was quite proud of her for keeping her core and avatar balanced this way, a single mind with two brains was quite a bit more complex to cope with than a single body. The medicine helped keep her avatar from burning out, but the split focus was just developing her skill.

Kazue had to keep herself from skipping as she followed her friends through the puzzles they put together. It was more like an extended picnic or outing than anything else, and these were the games she’d put together for them! She did hope her tweaks to the library were going to help make it a bit less overwhelming. She’d taken the feedback from Moriko and her ideas for the fifth floor and added some quests to help librarians either sort books or find reference materials that had been misplaced, instead of always having to figure out puzzles.

The conversation did eventually slide off into more risque territory, the other girls were quite curious about her love life as it turned out. “So, your husband is quite the older man.” Gako asked with a sly smile. “And your wife is a monk of the Lady of Passions.” The golden-haired follower of Amirume continued. “That has got to have been quite the educational wedding night.”

She could feel heat flushing across her cheeks, but it wasn’t quite as overwhelming as it had been before. Kazue raised her head with a toss of her hair as she feigned a bit of overdone haughty sophistication. “I’m a married woman now, I would never gossip about my loving husband and wife.” She held the pose for only a few seconds before relaxing with a grin. “But more seriously, well, with the way things happened, they both were patient. They invited, but made sure I was the one to make the decision. After that, well, the stories oversell how perfect even an experienced lover can make things, but undersell how perfect just being with them can be.” She spun in a slow circle as the group moved along the path. The shrine maidens had always been willing to swap books on a borrowing basis, so they all knew what sort of stories she was talking about.

And where Kazue had once been the one least experienced in love, she was probably the most experienced now amongst the shrine maidens. Well, former in her case. Generally one became a priestess long before they got married or otherwise seriously committed, but most had experienced some form of dalliance. “I think that the advice the priestesses always gave about love making it better is probably true. I mean, I don’t have the best point of comparison, but I know a lot about Moriko now, and it seems to match.”

While she chatted with them, Kazue was keeping track of the other party as well. The first thing they were doing better than the other party was that they had a scout. The huntress was scouting ahead and exploring different paths while the rest of the group moved ahead more slowly. The whole time the mage was keeping track of her with regular uses of a message cantrip, allowing silent communication within about a hundred feet, then passing on the information to the rest of the group.

The second thing they were doing better was taking the adorable dire rabbits seriously from the start. It probably helped that the forest was home to some fey creatures, and while most of them were merely pranksters, occasionally something dangerous managed to slip in from The Other Side. Cute and cuddly very much did not mean safe. Two of the warriors maintained cover with their shields and used a short blade to attack anything that got close enough, while the third provided support using her longspear to reach farther ahead of them. The huntress generally tried to come back to the group before an encounter, to fire her bow from behind protection, but occasionally she and her wolf worked their way around to flank a couple of dire rabbits, or to lure them to where the rest of the group was set up for an ambush.

The mage and the priest were mostly providing support during the first floor, keeping themselves to smaller magics that they could keep up indefinitely, or at least as long as physical fatigue would let them. And the priest was being cautious with his prayers as well, keeping himself to tending the women's small injuries with medical supplies, as their cautious approach prevented anything worse. Kazue was somewhat amused, based on their expression some of the women looked like they might prefer a little less professional care, but not one of them said or did anything about those thoughts. The hazards of being generally outnumbered nine to one.

Between their skills and their caution, none of the injuries had been deep, one of the worst had been from an electric bolt, but even that had been soothed with the proper poultice preparation. Now the team had gathered itself together once more to approach the final room of the first floor. But they were not going to get quite the fight they were expecting.

Ryuhoho stirred in his nest as the huntress entered the room. Despite his mistress telling him that he was on duty earlier this morning, he had gotten lost in his thoughts and almost missed the stir of air from the soft stepping kitsune. But it seems the cautious woman’s ears were as good as his own, for the dracobit had barely begun to rise to his feet before her ears twitched and her gaze snapped up to the perch that held his nest. Excellent. The game was on.