No Need for a Core?

While her husband attended to their guests, Kazue turned her attention to her half of the earth zone. To start, she created some separation for her different skill tests in the form of high cliffs that would split open when a test was successfully completed. For the first trial, she decided to combine a physically demanding task with some basic knowledge of earth in its many forms.

On one side of the path forward, she created a series of dioramas, each featuring a different sort of easily identified terrain, such as mountains and deserts. Upon the other side of the path, she created several large spheres of earth, each matching one of the terrains opposite, though in a randomized position. The spheres rested in shallow divots to hold them in place, a step that was extra important given the slight slope of the earth path, and there was a spot in front of each diorama with a similar divot.

The objective was simply to roll the heavy spheres to the proper diorama. Anyone should be able to match granite to the mountains, and most should be able to figure out sandstone belonged in the desert. Those who have worked with growing things should be able to recognize the appearance of rich, loamy earth even if it was sealed into a solid sphere by magic, and match it to a scene of lush greenery. But fewer people would be able to match marble to seashore cliffs with visible caves, or shale to a lakeside shore, for marble is transformed from limestone much like shale is transformed from clay. And for large or well-informed groups, she could add harder ones like a sphere of white nephrite that would need to be matched to dull gray and gray-green striped serpentine. Especially as striped serpentine rarely held nephrite.

Sufficient knowledge enabled a minimal amount of effort. The spheres could be moved endlessly to try different combinations, but there was a hidden cost to trying incorrect combinations. Every time a sphere was settled into the wrong diorama, all the spheres became 1% heavier. And you wouldn't know it was the wrong one until they were all in place and the cliff face parted or did not.

Kazue prepared several different varieties of possible matches to make it harder for various groups to eventually collate all the combinations. She also had a lot of books at her command and so she started making harder matches if she felt people were cheating, such as having to match ruby to the seaside cliff as rubies were often found inside of marble. Or worse, match ruby to an outcropping of anyolite, one of its other sources.

Of course, there was always the chance that some would try to climb the sheer cliff face. Those who attempt to do so would first face localized earthquakes, then buffeting winds, and finally, a sleet storm as they got near the top.

If anyone managed to do that, they'd then have to crawl along the top while still being pounded by a powerful storm of sleet and hail and then have to climb down the other side of the cliffs. This was a very, very poor option for most, and Kazue couldn't help but think of Gil here, but she felt that it should be left as an option rather than trying to make it completely impossible.

One way or another, a great amount of physical effort would be expended. So Kazue backed off of that for her second challenge and focused on a skill challenge instead, though there would certainly still be some work involved. Beyond the first cliff a delving group would find an open area with a workstation for each of them, and against the far wall were several altars to match the number of delvers as well. Like the shrine at the start of the zone, these altars were dedicated to Kamatha.

The nature of the workstation would depend on what type of artistry was going to be called upon, with the four current possible options being pottery, carving, sculpting, and painting. Painting might seem out of place, but the objects to be painted were rocks of random natural shapes and materials, and the process was going to involve making the pigment out of various minerals.

There were instructors on hand to guide someone in the basics, and some aspects were slightly altered, such as the kilns for pottery being enchanted to fire the clay in only an hour. Perfect artistry was not expected, but sincerity of effort was, along with being able to demonstrate some growth in ability and knowledge, and respect for the substance from which the art was made.

The tortoise god of earth would be the one to judge the worthiness of the offerings. Only when each person had presented a worthy offering could the group pass. Kazue had mixed feelings about 'using' the deity this way, but who else was in a position to best judge the sincerity of offerings made to him? And if the earth tortoise had felt this effort unworthy, the altars would not have received his sanctification.

The next trial, which covered the major curve in the path, was simpler in many ways. The delvers would just need to place stone weights onto various platforms to evenly distribute the weight of the stones. When all platforms were balanced and all the stone weights were on the platforms, the way would open.

Of course, all of them were enchanted to only allow one to be picked up at a time. The weights were also scattered about the area and varied greatly in size and density.

All of the platforms were of different sizes too, requiring that the densest stones be placed on the smallest platforms, negating the ability to sort stones of a given weight evenly. It was sort of like math, only the numbers that you were adding were relative, rather than having hard numbers to work with. After some consideration, Kazue also created a few planks of wood and scattered them about. With a bit of cleverness, they could be used to determine relative weight and be compared against each other, allowing one to use actual math after putting in the initial work to create a table of stones and weight.

For the next two trials she combined to create a small story. There was a marble quarry near the entrance to the final stretch, and further up the slope were several buildings that were eternally 'under construction' and being assembled via masonry. Here the delvers were to be trained to a minimal, basic proficiency in quarrying, shaping, and building with stone. Stone working expertise being demonstrated and taught to others would receive bonus rewards, incentivizing masons to take this path as a demonstration of their strength and skill.

For prizes, Kazue set a selection of small gems and nuggets of precious metals appropriate for the type of earth used in any given test, plus a variety of high-quality masonry and stone sculpting tools with minor enchantments, as well as some rarer mineral pigments. Even if a person wasn't interested in the tools or materials directly, they would still be worth selling, and those who specifically wanted the tools would have something to look forward to.

There was a small trick here, though it would take a little while before it became obvious. Kazue was starting the town at the end/top of the earth zone with the bare minimum of functional buildings and areas to camp out. As buildings were completed as part of the challenge, the dungeon would shift their location to the town when no one was around, and add a plaque naming every delver who had worked on the building. She was going to give everyone who passed through the zone that small touch of possessive "I helped build that" feeling. The dungeon was only going to provide the foundation for each building, mostly to make them easier to move later. Most of the work was going to be done by inhabitants and delvers.

Not everyone had that sort of sentimentality of course, but a lot of people took pride in what they helped make, and Kazue thought that many people would appreciate it.

Now for a way down. Kazue was going to have fun with this one, though she admitted to herself that not everyone would agree. She was going to provide two ways down: One was a long, winding slide in an enclosed tunnel that would deposit a person at the top of the foothill containing the entrance to the underground portion of their territory.

The other way down was to jump onto a giant floof of a mushroom cloud and let it drift down to deposit you somewhere on the outskirts of the trading post, courtesy of Sarcomaag. The exact location was random, and the clouds would slowly dissolve to be absorbed back into the fungal boss. Kazue thought both were fun, and both were kind of scary, if in different ways. She also worked with Sarcomaag to design a variation of the cloud mushroom that could be filled with a lighter form of air and only need a little bit of dungeon magic to cause it to float upward to the platform above. This would mostly be used by inhabitants moving about, but there could be cause to allow guests to use them.

Kazue's next goal was their new suite of rooms, which she was going to build into the crystal tree. She started by designing a variation of the crystal matrix that would guarantee privacy, completely diffusing any light and scattering it. This would make up the outer 'walls' of their home inside the tree, and some of the inner walls. But most inner walls Kazue made more transparent, allowing a teasing play of shadow and light from motion elsewhere. It was just for the three of them, they didn't need much privacy from each other.

Once she had designed her materials, Kazue designated a large branch to be a landing area and grew a flat platform that could be flown to, or stepped onto from a floating cloud mushroom. This led to a common living area, and from there branched off to a kitchen, some rooms for possible special guests, a small library, bathing facilities and such, a duplicate of their current bedroom set up, and a few other rooms. It was a luxurious setup, spread across three 'floors' and placed near the top of the crystal tree.

The last major thing to do was to look over their handful of shortcuts. They only had six, with one of those being brand new, and things were becoming complicated. Acquiring a new shortcut also temporarily loosened the anchors on the old ones. The feast hall nearby was still the best area for their major hub, with the original entryway of the dungeon being the secondary hub, so most of the shortcuts were going to have one of them as an endpoint.

First, between their earth city and the feast hall near their core was the biggest distance to be covered, so Kazue added their newest shortcut between them.

Between the entryway and the feast hall was the most commonly used existing one, so Kazue left that alone.

The library was connected to both the feast hall and the entryway, taking up two more of their shortcuts, and those were used fairly often as well.

A shortcut between the feast hall and the village at the start of the river zone made it possible to have a shortcut entrance/exit within one zone of any location.

A little-used shortcut between the library and the wetlands village Kazue decided to shift and make it a hidden emergency escape path. It led from the feast hall to a hidden cave she made deep into the hunting grounds, nestled into a small hill. The cave in question had a solid facade that could only be unsealed from the inside, and it only opened outward. She was feeling certain that Mordecai's paranoia was rubbing off on her, and she sent that thought at him even as she made sure the cave had appropriate lighting and a large number of supplies in case they ever had to send a bunch of people here in a hurry.

The cave was also connected to the warrens, if via a very long and circuitous route. And as a final touch of paranoia, she very carefully made sure that the cave system had not a hint of spacial alteration to its area. In a worst-case scenario, the collapse of their territory would not damage the cave.

Mordecai's voice whispered into her mind, "Well done love. This isn't the type of contingency I would have thought of. My planning has all been preventative, but this is more selfless and so very you."

Kazue could feel the warmth of his love and she let herself indulge in simply enjoying it before she returned to her tasks.

Not that there was much left to do. After she swept through and made sure everything was working properly and there were no missing connections, she took care of a final step that Mordecai had requested earlier. He was a little concerned about how their growth pattern was going to work and wanted to spread their 'base' more. Their territory only abutted Kuiccihan's near the surface, and Mordecai wanted to expand every underground zone out until it touched the border as well.

At a casual look, it was rather wasteful; they were going to be expending most of the mana they earned for the next several weeks into claiming 'dead' territory, and even more would be spent to claim the next zone down as they were going to continue to claim that much territory.

But it would ensure that there were fewer chances for nasty surprises due to their unconventional growth pattern, and Mordecai was going to at least take advantage of the extra space to expand the sewer system into a much more complicated set of tunnels, creating a very long and circuitous path. Based on what he'd shown her, anyone traveling through the sewer path would be covering at least three times the distance they would be if they were going down the normal combat path.