No Need for a Core?

Mordecai watched Fuyuko closely as she thought about the offer. He wasn't terribly happy about her consideration of vengeance but that was mostly a practical matter. The trail was very cold and even with scrying magic it would be difficult to find a starting point.

However, he was pleased that she was thinking about her options, and at least she didn't seem overly focused on the idea of finding her parent's killers. Fuyuko was beginning to understand that she was on the path to wielding real power, which meant there were options available to her that were not there before.

Then she asked, "So, what do we have to do to make this happen?"

He smiled as he answered, "First you should decide where you want to focus any manifestations of power. The easiest three concepts for you are Oni, Wolf, and Shadow."

Fuyuko cocked her head to the side before asking, "What would be the difference? And what if I didn't want one of those?"

"Well," he replied, "faerie magic is always a bit unpredictable, especially when it comes to manifestations of power. Focusing on your oni heritage would likely manifest as increased strength and durability, maybe as a general increase or possibly as a way to boost your strength greatly for short bursts. A focus on your lycan heritage might help with your shape-shifting and might enable you to communicate with or command normal wolves. A shadow focus will undoubtedly help with stealth and manipulating shadow, but it might also have the most uncanny visual side effects. All of them will have some side effects. As for other options, you can tell me if you want something specific, but the results will be more unpredictable."

She shook her head. "Nah, I think I get it. Um, being stronger would be nice, and wolf powers would be neat, but I think shadow might be best. Ya already had me training with stuff like that. And I think it might get me what I want the most too."

"Which is?"

"Ta be useful. Ya already got strong people and magic people, if you need to have someone do something for ya, I'm the only sneaky person you have other than your dungeon folk, and they have jobs." There was a moment of silence before she sighed and admitted, "And yeah, if I get a chance, it seems my best shot at getting vengeance, but I promise, I am not putting that ahead of keepin' people safe and getting things done."

Mordecai agreed with her reasoning as to which powers might be more useful for her, and he was content with her answer regarding vengeance. "Very well. Fuyuko, on behalf of myself, Queen Kazue, and Queen Moriko, I extend an offer to adopt you as Our daughter and make you a princess of Our realm. Do you accept us as your adoptive father and mothers?" He made sure to slightly manipulate the illusions he was controlling to look directly at Fuyuko, it was important that she felt the weight of her decision.

Fuyuko went down to one knee in a passing imitation of a knight kneeling in front of royalty. "I accept your offer, and pledge myself to be Your loyal daughter and princess of Your realm."

Her kneeling position made it easy for him to step forward and hug her close as he whispered, "Welcome to our family."

The girl gasped and clutched at him as power shivered through her body. It took only a moment for the sensation to pass and he helped her back to her feet when she recovered. Fuyuko started looking herself over. "Um, did anything change?"

"A little, yes," he replied. "Your shadow isn't copying your motions exactly, and most shadows near you are bending a little toward you." His own was an exception of course. "Now, let's get some training in, and see if we can't figure out what you can do."

They spent the rest of the afternoon experimenting and discovered at least the start of her abilities. Fuyuko could, with effort, draw shadows she was standing in more tightly around her, rendering them darker and helping to obscure her. Additionally, she could make shadows cling to a target she touched or struck with her hand or a weapon. At the moment it was only a light haze, but with training, it might be able to blind a foe.

After dinner, Mordecai suggested she practice her image training more, and then he asked Derek to take a walk with him. The boy looked a little nervous at this, which wasn't much of a surprise, but he wasn't in trouble. "Derek," Mordecai began, "yesterday, Shizoku was cornered by our visitor and found herself needing to openly declare her feelings and intentions, regarding you." Derek's eyes went wide but Mordecai continued before the young man could say anything, "I'm not going to repeat what she said, and I don't suggest you say anything to her about it, but I think it's fair to say she seems pretty set on the idea of keeping you around. Which is why I am giving you this."

He handed Derek a small pouch and said, "You'll find a list with the names of some tattoo artists who know how to enchant their work and are recommended by Moriko, along with enough coin to pay for a long-term protective tattoo. The sort that should last about five years or more."

Derek blushed and coughed. "Er, I don't think I exactly need that right now, sir."

"No, but it's not for right now. It's for if you are fifteen or sixteen and the two of you get carried away. I'm not saying you shouldn't talk to your parents first either, but I want to make sure you have this money dedicated to getting a tattoo, so there's no guilt about using money that you could give to your family." From what Mordecai had learned, Derek's family was a little on the poor side, enough so that even with his recent influx of wealth earned from the delve they might tend to save instead of spend on something like this. "I understand that the Azeria clan rarely uses them even for teens, so it's on you to make sure there are no consequences until you are ready for them."

The boy scratched the back of his neck and looked down. "I guess you might be right."

Mordecai considered Derek for a moment longer before deciding that this would have to do. Derek was more than capable of standing up to Shizoku when he felt it important, but Mordecai was pretty certain that this was a topic where the kitsune would have the last word. Though hopefully not for many years, that girl had issues to work out. "Alright, well, let's head back. Both of you are heading out tomorrow and won't see each other for a little while, I am sure you won't mind a bit more time together."

And that was the last of the situations he needed to take care of. The recent events were providing a never-ending source of headaches. Both of them had been splitting their attention across multiple tasks and there were a few things that required some ongoing monitoring, but most of the prisoners had been securely transferred and there seemed little cause to worry about Deidre now.

Orchid and Paltira would be heading out tomorrow as well, leaving Kansif behind as a trainer for Fuyuko's shifting abilities, though he was going to see if Kansif would be willing to take on a few other special trainees too. He was pretty certain the princess was in a rush to leave because she didn't want to get caught up in the diplomatic paperwork involved with the Azeria Mountain Dungeon also being the Azeria Court. Mordecai couldn't blame her, he didn't want to deal with it either.

Now, finally, their new bosses could be done. They'd had to keep the new zone blocked off as neither of them had been able to devote the attention that it needed. This zone did not lead toward the core, so blocking it off brought no issues for them.

The first two of the three new bosses were going to be their ursaviane friends that Bellona had brought with her. "Hey love, what do you think of the names Owlbert and Owliver?" he asked Kazue.

"I think you are an awful and horrible man with terrible naming sense," she replied. Kazue's delivery of that statement was ruined by the ongoing mental giggle fit he'd just given her.

"I'll take that as a 'yes' for their names then." Mordecai nudged the two to make their way on up while he prepared their new abilities. The pair were still young but growing fast, and he had nudged their growth rate a little as well, but he didn't make any major changes to their forms other than making it comfortable to stand on their back legs for extended periods.

The first ability he designed required them to take a low stance. From this stance, they could stomp on the ground to create a local earthquake. This effect would be amplified if they were together and could coordinate their attacks.

Additionally, Mordecai gave them a mild petrification effect to all their physical attacks. It was incredibly unlikely that anyone was going to suffer significantly from that before falling to an ursaviane's claws and beaks, but anyone unable to resist the magic would find their bodies slowly growing stiff and their skin brittle with accumulated hits. He did add a restriction that all effects would fade within an hour of the last strike received.

As a final touch, Mordecai imparted a small selection of his martial knowledge; specifically, some open palm strikes and grappling moves suitable to the low stance and the impression of how to manipulate chi to fling stones with a gesture. Naturally, they needed to be equipped properly for their new fighting style, so he provided the silken loincloths with thick belts associated with this particular style of wrestling, called mawashi. These he created as loot and gave them basic strength and athletic-enhancing enchantments.

For the floor's third boss, he decided to go with an earth drake. It wasn't hard to find a burrowing lizard that was responsive to the concept, and soon the dungeon had a new earth-swimming inhabitant named Amber. She didn't have Enki's ability to move through worked stone, but natural earth and stone might as well be water for her. She had obsidian-like teeth and claws and could spit both blunt and sharp rocks at will. She lacked the ability to spray them over an area like a dragon's breath weapon, but she could at least attack at range as needed. Amber also had some limited ability to shape and sculpt natural earth and stone around her.

With the three bosses established, Mordecai double-checked that the layer of living crystal would dampen any effects and prevent quakes from spreading too far. While he was doing so he received a mental nudge from Zushi. As their first boss and their first raid boss, the void bunny saw it as his duty to check in on all the new bosses that were assigned. And it seemed that the great Zushi was feeling a bit jealous this time.

Mordecai considered the mental image of Zushi standing up and wearing the same loincloth as the ursavianes but with the belt made out of gold instead. "A little ostentatious, don't you think?" Mordecai sent, amused. Though he did wish Zushi would talk more often; unfortunately while Zushi's voice was deep it was also very soft, almost like he was whispering, and the raid boss was a bit embarrassed by it. One's mental voice tended to default to one's real voice as well, though with experience and concentration, one could temporarily change that. Zushi's refusal to speak even mentally meant he wasn't getting that experience.

"Fine, you can already do most of their moves through a different method, so changing up your style won't be a power increase, and you haven't pushed yourself since we claimed the new zone so we should have some flexibility."

While he was considering the redesign, Kazue added, "You better keep him cute looking! Zushi has to remain cute!"

This was enough to catch Moriko's attention. "Wait, what are you guys doing? What's happening with my Fluff-ball?"

"Calm down," Mordecai replied, "I think that I have a solution that will suit everyone." Though he was amused by Moriko's nickname for Zushi. The woman usually didn't like admitting how much she loved cute creatures, but Kazue's rabbits were what had lured her to the dungeon in the first place.

It didn't take long to implement his plan. Bipedal forms for animals that could already stand on their back legs usually weren't too hard; Mordecai mostly wanted to make sure everything would be healthy and comfortable in the long run for Zushi. The hardest part was designing all the joints so that Zushi could crouch or stand with equal ease.

Zushi already had the ability to create tremors when he hopped, so adding that to a stomp wasn't difficult. Nor was tweaking his void ability so that he could throw random items from his collection in imitation of the ursaviane's ability to control small rocks. The petrification ability didn't match Zushi's theme at all so Mordecai didn't even try to mimic it. Just giving Zushi the ability to give foes a bear hug was terrifying enough.

As for Zushi's mawashi, Mordecai decided to go all in and made it out of the shiniest golden silk the dungeon could manage. The outer surface of the belt section was studded with a rainbow selection of tiny gemstones chosen for their color and refractive qualities rather than rarity. Each of the tassels hanging from the belt also ended in a larger glittering gemstone carved into the shape of a rose. Naturally, it had a significantly stronger version of the enchantment that the other mawashi had. It was almost as strong as the gaudiness implied, and the enchantment would get stronger as the dungeon grew.

"Okay," Kazue said, "he's still adorable, but that belt is a hideous abomination and I think I love it."