No Need for a Core?

Throughout the Azeria Mountain Dungeon and along many lines of connection rippled new power and potential.

Carmilla roused slowly from the aftermath of her oath and stretched happily as she felt a portion of her power as a princess return to her. She was in the domain that she now belonged to after all. Opening her eyes, she smiled at Mordecai's concerned expression and opened her mouth to tease him.

The words tasted like ash in her mouth. The idea of flirting with him felt wrong.

Startled, she sat upright as she tried to figure out what had happened. It didn't take her very long to realize what this unintended consequence was, and she hid her face in her hands. "Of course that would happen. If I'm the princess of a court with queens and a king, then I am at least their adoptive daughter." Mordecai started laughing softly, and Carmilla could hear Kazue trying to comfort her but the effort was ruined by how laughter leaked across even that mental voice. It didn't help her feeling of embarrassment.

Throughout the dungeon, all of the fey inhabitants gained a small measure of power, which was amplified when also inside of the growing domain.

Fuyuko had been practicing in the arena to work off a bit of nervousness knowing what Mordecai and Shizoku were dealing with topside. A sudden shiver nearly made her drop her daggers and she looked around in confusion. She could tell something was different, but she couldn't tell what and that made her nervous.

Moments later, Kazue spoke softly into her mind, "You can relax, nothing bad has happened, but I think your status as our ward is going to affect you a little. Um, we'll talk more later, a lot is happening, but it's fine. Really."

Somehow that was not comforting.

Shizoku had been making her way back down to the dungeon's guest quarters when she noticed a faint luminance casting her shadow on a wall in front of her. She turned around with a frown only to find nothing behind her. Then she glanced down at the ground and found her shadow being cast forward again.

With trepidation, she drew one of her tails forward and stared in dumbfounded shock at the trickle of glowing white motes drifting from it.

Topside, Orchid had taken the opportunity to take a nighttime walk with her consort. She was rather enjoying the feeling of leaning against him as his fingers brushed through her hair, but then she felt him pull something free that she hadn't realized was there. She turned to look at what he had in his hand only to stare in confusion at the white orchid in his hand. "That's cute, learning some sleight of hand, love?"

Paltira shook his head. "No, this is from you." He reached over, plucked a rose from her hair, and gestured behind them. For the last several meters their trail was littered by a scattering of random flower petals.

In the Azeria forest, Norumi sighed at the sudden changes she felt. "Oh Father, what did you do this time?" The effect was unmistakable, she was somehow even more fey than her transformation had already made her, though in a purely additive fashion. She couldn't see any immediate effects, but she felt somehow more solid and guessed that at the least she'd be able to make a corporeal body more easily. Possibly even sustain one for a while. Now that could be an interesting idea.

In Riverbridge Traxalim fought to retain his mortality. For an ancient, powerful elf priest even a small infusion of faerie essence could tilt that balance and now his grandfather was a Faerie King. The temporal order of events like this meant little to faerie logic, only the connections and relationships. He was able to maintain his grip on mortality, but a glance in the mirror revealed an elf that appeared to be no more than middle-aged. This left him with rather mixed feelings.

In an inn room on the coast of Kuiccihan, Moriko had been keeping Kazue and Ruby up to date on the unfolding events, minus some careful edits regarding the statues and the border, when Carmilla swore her oath. Shortly after that, Mordecai laid claim to the new domain on their behalf. Titles that carried Power claimed Kazue and Moriko, and the two newly crowned Faerie Queens were briefly lit by bolts of power that shattered their chairs and scorched the floor around them. The two kneeling women gasped to catch their breath before they carefully rose to their feet.

"What happened?" Kazue asked.

Moriko sighed as she answered, "Mordecai says our new status carries its own power. It doesn't have as much impact on him as he was already used to it, but it might take a while for us to deal with more than the side effects, whatever they might be."

"Well," Ruby said, "that would certainly explain those." She pointed at Kazue's back.

The kitsune twisted about futilely to see what was on her back until Moriko grabbed her by the shoulders and brought her to the mirror so she could see what was there from the side. Kazue gaped at her new faerie wings for a moment before whispering, "Oh, they are so beautiful." She shook herself out of her trance to start examining Moriko. "I don't see anything different about you. Well, maybe you are a bit taller?"

"Look down," Ruby told them.

Moriko wasn't any taller. She just wasn't standing on the ground. Her feet were floating a couple of inches above the ground.

After several minutes of effort, Moriko managed to make her feet stay on the ground properly, but it took a little bit of continual effort to not start drifting again. With that settled, she looked at Kazue and said, "Mordecai has also noticed that there seem to be visual cues of fey bloodline amongst his descendants."

"Oh," Kazue replied, and then the two of them turned toward Ruby. "Um, you should probably deactivate your ring."

Ruby narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Why would this have anything to do with me?"

"Well," Kazue said, "I think this secret is as good as dead, so we might as well tell you now. Queen Norumi, founding mother of both the Apifera bloodline and the Azeria clan matriarchy, is Mordecai's daughter."

There was silence for a few moments as the woman processed this news. Princess Bridgette pulled off her disguise ring and began hastily looking herself over. "Did something happen? Did I change? I don't see anything."

"Your hair," Moriko said.

Bridgette drew a lock of her hair forward and examined the flowing, currently heatless green and red flames that coated the strands. The bits of fire that flickered off of the flames now often had distinctive leaf shapes, whether they were red or green. "That's sort of scary, but I have to admit that it looks fabulous." She got up from her chair to look at herself in the mirror too, turning from side to side to examine the way her hair moved and shifted. "I think it's longer too, but the ends now float more so it's hard to tell."

Kazue glanced at Moriko with amusement. "Do you think we need to give her some alone time with her reflection?"

"Hah, you're one to talk, you were just as fascinated with your wings," Moriko replied.

"I admit to no such thing," Kazue said. "Oh, and you are floating again."

They spent some time getting used to their new changes, but eventually, Bridgette turned her mind to the mystery that had just been presented to her. "So, how do you two know about this, and did you say 'is' when talking about Queen Norumi?"

Kazue pursed her lips thoughtfully. "That's complicated and involves other people's secrets. Hmm, I wonder how good your privacy gem is. There's someone I'd like to sort of call upon, but I don't know if I am going to need you to turn it off for a bit to do so."

"It's not that good, at least, not when I focus my attention on the area," said the young woman with wildly colored hair who was suddenly sitting on the bed as if she'd been there all along.

Bridgette yelped in surprise and barely kept herself from throwing a bolt of fire at the woman. "Who are you? And why aren't you two surprised?"

"Well," Moriko said, "this is the person Kazue was talking about. So, I am guessing that you turned your attention toward Bridgette when the rest of her family started having something happen?"

"Yes, and please, make introductions. There's no point in keeping the secret from the rest of the family now, and I've already let the secret keepers know that their oaths no longer bind them when talking to the royal family."

Kazue nodded. "Princess Bridgette, I would like you to meet Kuiccihan. Lady Kuiccihan, I believe you have been familiar with Princess Bridgette since she was born."

The princess sat back down with a thump.

"Yes, I am," Kuiccihan said. "To answer your questions, they know because Mordecai figured out that they were sharing borders with a dungeon, namely, myself. So that made it time to have a little chat. And that talk included another, Mordecai's daughter Norumi. You might also know of her as the Azeria Forest Spirit. Oh, and the Guardian Spirit is King Haolong. Well, former king, they both go by just their names now."

While Bridgette processed this information dump, Moriko asked, "So what is the plan from here? I take it the whole truth isn't going to be announced tomorrow morning or anything."

"No," Kuiccihan replied, "for now the extended family is going to be brought in on at least the bloodline part, and the royal family will be told the whole thing. This should coordinate minimizing the impact of these sudden signs. But other people are having random changes and there is no way to keep the secret indefinitely anymore. I'm not sure what our next step is going to be, but it would help if I knew what in all the heavens and hells happened in your dungeon tonight and what it has to do with Queen Sylphine's visit?"

"Well, she was there because it turns out her daughter had been hiding among our fairies," Kazue said. "Skipping the details, Mordecai asked her to confirm her decision to continue as our inhabitant and floor boss, or she otherwise would become our guest. She took things a step further and swore an oath instead. Mordecai's avatar includes faerie bloodlines, and he had used a bit of that potential when he was letting her know how upset he was. Well, the way she did it basically made him her king and us her queens. The Azeria Mountain Dungeon is now also the Azeria Court."

Kuiccihan spent the next several minutes using every curse word she could remember, and she had quite an impressive vocabulary. After she wound down and caught her breath, she complained, "I can't believe I'm going to be sharing my border with a Faerie Court. I like playing with a faerie avatar, but I don't want to be that involved with them. Oh no, I just realized that the royal family could found a court in the capital if the entire bloodline is now fae. Wait, no, it's my territory. It only happened to you guys because Mordecai was on both sides of the equation. Okay, I'll want to put some protections in place to be sure, but it looks pretty unlikely as long as I don't allow it." She sighed and shook her head. "I'm talking with too many people about the same topic at the same time. It's hard to keep the conversations straight. I'm just going to go now, thanks, sorry, and whatever else should be appropriate right now, too much to do."

And with that, she was simply gone.

"My kingdom is a dungeon. Queen Norumi and King Haolong are still alive but have given up their titles. This has been some sort of conspiracy from the founding, hasn't it? Does this have something to do with the marks?"

Moriko and Kazue spent the next few hours filling her in.

Not everyone descended from Mordecai had some form of awakening, the stronger the bloodline was and the closer they were connected to the source the more likely they were to awaken. But that was not the only path.

Power calls to power. The form of the power did not matter, so long as it was their own. Warriors, monks, wizards, priests, and others like them were the ones to feel their bloodline suddenly become fae-touched. The quiet life of a farmer or merchant did not quicken that inheritance.

Outside of this local concentration in Kuiccihan, the awakenings would be few and far between, but they were scattered across the entire world.

Far from the realm of mortals, at the junction of dreams, shadows, and reflections, a god helplessly watched as the tapestry of the world rewove itself. Until the ripples of this moment settled out, even Ozuran's limited view of future probabilities was effectively blinded on this planet.

All because a faerie princess happened to run away from home when Li was visiting the Azeria Mountain Dungeon.