Moriko took a breath to calm herself down, she felt slightly nervous asking this for some reason. “Well, I’ve had a lot on my mily, and I think I o sort some stuff out, only I am not certain what I o sort out yet. So after dinner and everyone heads off to bed, I’m going to take some time to myself aate, and I am not sure for how long. Which is where I would like to ask a favor.”

  They were both watg curiously, and Moriko cleared her throat. “So, when I first ran into Mordecai, I meditated o his core while he was crafting the ritual. It was a very iing experience, and I think I would like to try that again, but with your bined core. It would be your presence, but without iing. It holy just seems like the most peaceful pe to meditate. So I am asking that you guys could create a simple path there from my room?”

  Kazue was still processing the thought when Mordecai responded with a soft smile. “I am okay with that if Kazue is. Did you want to settle our core into your p like you did before?”

  The kitsuwitched, her hair and fur poofing as dungeon instincts reacted to the idea, and then she rolled her eyes in frustration at her owion. “Of course it's okay if it’s you, love. Um, the bit about holding the ade me a touch jumpy, but I am sure it’ll be fine if Mordecai is sure it's fine.”

  “I think you will enjoy it, actually,” Mordecai murmured, then looked back at Moriko. “I think we make the pathway easy for you and give you some room to fortably settle, and you’ll have all the time you need.”

  Moriko nodded with a smile, then moved on to a topic easier for her to discuss. “Thank you both. But now I want to ask a different question.” Her smile wideo a grin. “Mordecai, I hadn’t thought about all the things that would be involved when you said you mushed a bunch of avatars together to make one super-body, but there are a fee-ging tribes other than kitsune, and there are a whole lot of iingly built races out there. So, what else might you be hiding uhat skin?”

  Mordecai gave her an amused look as he replied in a dry tone. “You don’t want to know everything, especially not at once as I was in a hurry and just made it barely funal, knowing I could borroects as needed once I got better at trolling my shape ging. As for the question I think you are actually asking, sorry, there were no funal ges involved with that part of the body and I wasn’t rebuilding in order to eain you, so there’s only one model.”

  Moriko pouted in mild disappoi while Kazue’s expression cycled through fusion, enlighte, curiosity, and then a disappointed look of her own. Moriko was amused that her attitude was rubbing off on the once shy little kitsuhetention was drawn back to her husband as she started feeling a pyful maliciousness ing across their link from him, and found him tapping his thoughtfully.

  “Although, that is certainly not the only way to ‘py’. And now that you’ve caused me to give it some thought, I may have an idea or two that will keep you both eained before we go out to visit with uests again.” Moriko narrowed her eyes as his weight shifted subtly, and tried to anticipate whatever he was going to do.

  Then Kazue yelped as shadows grew over and g to her body. Moriko stared in shock for a moment before trying to leap bad away from the table, but all she mao do was nd with her butt on the floor as something pulled on her leg. Looking down she saw a long tendril of hair ed around her ankle and flowing across the floor to behind Mordecai. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” She muttered.

  The table and chairs suddenly vanished, and Mordecai looked over at Kazue with a smile. “Sorry love, I had already taken my weight off my seat.”

  But the kitsune ignored him, looking at Moriko with a giggle before biting her lip and schooling her face to a brief bnkness before she then shifted into an overly dramatic expression of pleading desperation. “Oh Hero! This vile vilin hath captured me! Save me please, and I will do anything I , to show you my undying gratitude.” As she spoke, she breathed heavily, and somehow her robes had bee loose enough to show a bit of cleavage as she did so. Moriko was growing very, very curious about exactly what was in those books the girl wanted so badly. Also, Kazue’s struggles looked distinctly iual.

  Still, time to py her part. “Worry not fair maiden, for I shall free thee from the clutches of this monster!” Moriko kipped up and rolled forward, twisting as she did so to nd her free foot oendril of hair. Now she had the leverage to twist, pulling her foot free and smoothly rolling that momentum into a spin kick aimed directly at Mordecai’s head.

  He barely swayed to dodge the kick, then he caught her leg while still looking at Kazue. “Oh, vilin is it? I suppose I should look the part then.” Moriko heard Kazue gasp in delighted ‘terror’, and when Mordecai turo smirk at Moriko, she could see that he now sported a pair of rather sharp-looking fangs. Oh. My.

  But he wasn’t do. “You dare challenge me? Then behold the power of my true form!” The man could barely hold a straight face as he said that. Then a pair of giant, dragon-like wings bloomed from his back. His grip loosened on her leg as he gave a slight shove, and she took that momentum to spin away from him and dance back a few steps, taking up a proper stanow.

  This also gave her a ce to get a good look at what was going on. Moriknized what was going on with Mordecai’s shadow, because of course a devotee of Ozuran would have studied those forms, if he went to train at a monastery. It was also an advanced form of the teique that the god had gifted her knowledge of a while ago. The hair thing was o her, but the world has many unusual things in it, and now she saw a tail sh behind him as well, looking thin and whip-like. Had the man formed tiefling avatars in the past too? “Look, my dy! The vilin is in truth a fiend of the her realms! I shall vanquish him immediately!” She cried out, trying to not ugh.

  Then Kazue yelped somewhat indignantly at a light crag sound, and Moriko realized that Mordecai had used his tail to spank the kitsune. “You think to vanquish me? You ot even stop me while I torture her for my amusement.” The shadows dragged Kazue behind him, where his hair and tail also ed her up securely. All that Moriko could see was her head, tails, and hands. Then Kazue’s expression distorted before crag into gales of ughter. It seems that the ‘torture’ was going to be tig her senseless. This also meant that he was free to face Moriko directly.

  “I shall put ao you, monster!” Moriko called out and charged. In the end, she failed to ‘rescue’ Kazue of course, but that wasn’t really the point, was it?

  It was about time to go out and be proper hosts again, so Mordecai sighed and pulled himself from the pile where the three of them had colpsed into a cuddle at the end of their horsepy. “e on, you two.” He said, helping pull them both to their feet, then put away his excess limbs. It had been fun to cuddle them in his wings at the end, and their pytime had given him some food for thought regarding his shape-shifting.

  That had certainly not been his actual ‘true’ form of course, that pition was nightmarish, but he’d been given enough space to seled pull out one aspect at a time. W that slowly would have rendered his shape-shifting useless in real bat, but for that sort of pytime it came in rather handy. He o ge that limitation tomorrow after everyone had left and he had more free time. It was deg on what ges to make that took forever, so if he took some time to nail down the exact hybrid forms he wao use and memorized them, he should be able to s faster.

  Akahana was iailless form while tending to her cassowary in a er where the ganthros had taken it upon themselves to build a for the giant bird. He was gd they were fident in making decisions like this on their own, which he attributed in part to Kazue’s influence. Mordecai knew he was better at being approachable than when he had first started, at least whe effort into it, but he khat his first kobold tribe had been much more cautious about taking as they weren’t certain he wahen again, maybe that had beeo the nature of kobolds? He’d only retaihe impression and lessons learned, not the full memories, so it was a bit hard to directly pare.

  Mordecai did receive a bit of a suspicious look from his mother-in-w, which he suspected was due to the more rexed mood of the trio now. She was wrong, or at least not quite right, about what they’d been up to, but he wasn’t ined to disabuse her of the idea either. If she had any issues, that was between her and Kazue unless Kazue wanted his help. Which didn’t seem necessary as Akahana quickly shook off that protective reflex and walked over to greet her daughter. “Have a good talk then?” she asked in a teasing tone.

  “Yes, actually.” Kazue said before briefly stig out her tongue. “And I want to move up our own talk to ter tonight. These two both have some mediation stuff to do, and that on’t hold up everyone in the m.”

  Akahana looked a touch surprised at that, then shrugged. “Alright dear. Your mother is always ready to lend you her ear.”

  Kazue tilted her head slightly as if she’d just realized something, but for the moment only said “Well, let’s take our pces at the table, the others should be joining us soon.” While the three of them had talked and then pyed, everyone else had a ce to bath, rest, and mend or repce clothing. They’d made sure to even provide some extra robes if anyone hem, but it looked like everyone had e suffitly prepared.

  Mordecai observed their guests as Kazue took the lead, rising from her seat to get everyone’s attention. “Wele brave adventurers!” She began with a grin. “You have successfully quered the dungeon, and received your promised reward, though I must hat you did lose out on some treasures with how reckless your st fight was. Who knows what rare, a spells might have been written ihose tomes and scrolls? Perhaps a future party will be able to find out.” She was earning some poiares with her presentation, though Akahana appeared a touch embarrassed. Mordecai wasn’t certain how many of the spells he’d made avaible as potential loot were actually rare, but he had done his best to select spells that had not been widely spread ba his time.

  “We do have a bit of a sotion prize however. I have just added a bandoleer with a half dozen invigoration potions for each of you to your rooms. They are based on our unique honey so unlike many potions, they taste good!” Akahana’s expression was a delight to Mordecai as he watched the druidess put together the creatures she’d seen and where the source of the honey robably from. It didn’t take long for her to get over the weirdness of honey from a creature that was half rabbit, she’d likely had to eat weirder things before, but people often acted strange about certain foods. That was a habit he’d had to create for himself, especially when he wanted an avatar to be able to live life as a member of the species it appeared to be. Mordecai’s own squeamishness around ‘gross’ foods was ent as a default, since his baseline instincts and habits were so different.

  “Now, while our friends are bringing out your dinners, we would love to hear feedback from you about your experiences. All pints are of course Mordecai’s fault, for a sweet little ihing like me couldn’t possibly have had a hand in anything that would cause others distress.” Kazue fluttered her shes in an overly dramatic fashion befrinning and taking her seat.

  Orchid spoke up first. “I would like to talk about ohing in particur. Yolem, it punched me in the back of the head!”

  “Elemental, actually.” Mordecai corrected. The mistake was uandable, most earth elementals had a rough shape formed of more boulder-like materials, while Enki’s appearance was that of a smooth humanoid shape sculpted out of a single piece of stohat had e as a surprise to him as well, and Mordecai suspected it was due to him pushing the cept of being able to move through worked stone upon the f raid boss, with Enki’s form adapting its appearao be more like that same material.

  “As to your , I would point out several things. First, I had by that time already had the opportunity to analyze everyone’s resilience, and the auras of any armor they were wearing.” He smiled slightly. “Sorry Princess, I am well aware that you had ented armor on underh the robes, and a pair of short swords as backup ons.”

  One of the side effects of growing strong enough to test against the wild creatures of the world was an automatic adaptation to hostile energy, slowly trating one’s life forake a person more resilient. His cute little bookwyrms might have been mostly troublesome to this group, but a direct bst of their paper-flechette breath ons would have shredded your average farmer or city mert. A traveling mert was more likely to have overe the right sort of adversity to develop their own resilience, if not as much so as a person who sought out trouble.

  “So by my estimation, you would have been out for no more than ten minutes. Sed, I knew Paltira was there, and while I am certain he would have rushed to the side of any of your panions who was downed, I am fident that your sort has you at the top of his priority list for his healing prayers.” The pair blushed slightly at that, which was rather cute in his opinion. “Third, Akahana had only used a little healing magic so far, so she could have jumped in if needed. And finally, I was monit the fight. If Enki had somehow ma you to the brink of death, I could have been at your side and cast my own healing magi only a few seds.”

  Admittedly, pulverizing the brain into plete mush would be beyond the magics yet at his and, even when applied instantly, but Enki’s full-strength punch catg the princess unawares had barely been enough to damage the back of her skull. There simply wasn’t enough margin of error for that blow to be instantly lethal to her. “If that had been necessary, I would of course have marked you as being out of the fight and officially ‘dead’, but the reality is that the ces of you dying there were lower than most humans have of dying when tripping over a cat.”

  Orchid looked mollified at that answer aled bato her seat. Xarlug spoke up , and his expression was much happier than the princess’s had been. “I thought it was fun. It’s o be able to just take things head-on. Following her highness about I always have to be careful about making sure I am only hitting the right things. Running your dungeon, I get to know hitting it is always the right solution.”

  Right, mental ime to start w oures where hitting it harder made things worse. Hmm, there were splitting oozes, and he had some iingly unique slimes to start with. But he needed a floor pn to match, so he’d o talk with Kazue ter so they could pn.

  “I am gd you enjoyed yourself. e ba a few months, and you’ll find some new challenges avaible!” Which also reminded him to try and develop oints for repeat ers. That bit of teleportation dungeon magic was beyond them right now, but if he made sure to keep it in mind and make suitable side rooms to put them in, they’d be able to acquire it eventually. Hmm, his past self had made sure to keep the general knowledge of them avaible, but the specifics weren’t in his head, so Mordecai guessed that it might be a while before he could implement them.

  There was some specific feedback Mordecai wanted, however. “Akahana, I’d like your opinion on that final fight. I’m also curious as to what else you had up your sleeve.”

  “Heh, well, by the time we got to the boss, I was a little frustrated. I had gotten to show off for the previous floors, only to be stopped cold because of the way you made that library. And then when you snatched Shizoku like that, I admit I panicked a little. I mean, I knew Kazue would never let something bad happen to her, but the rational part was overridden for a bit. And when I recovered from that, I was kind of angry that I had panicked and just wao get the whole thing over with. Sorry I went a bit overboard, but I am also kind of impressed you pushed me to go so far. Oh, as for my remaining big tricks, I had two bat form spells and a multiperson healing spell still. They just hadn’t been useful yet.”

  That made sense. bat form spells were a useful tool for a spell slio be able to just start smashing things for a while, but unlike innate shape-ging abilities they generally made it impossible for a caster to keep using other spells while in pce, so were most often used when all else had been exhausted. She and Orchid had switched to a barrage of lesser spells that they could keep up for a while, rather thaing Horace get into melee range, switg to a bat form would have ed that tactic.

  “Very well done, all of you.” Mordecai said, turning his attention now to look across all of his guests, then focused on the you. “And Shizoku, I know you are annoyed about being taken out like that. But especially given ye, you did remarkably well. I normally wouldn’t have let anyone so young run the dungeon as a batant, but yrandmother clearly saw you as petent for battle.” Well, he’d let an orc her age run it, but given that most of them were at their full height and greenhorn warriors by the age of 12, their short-lived race was a bit of an exception.

  “Your inexperience did show a little, but in the end, it was bad luck that did you in. Which is the nature of battle, oakes opportunities where one finds them, and when Horace saw you bag up to the wall, he saportunity to take you out of the fight.”

  “I guess.” It was clear that the girl was struggling to overe her rea to her defeat, the little kitsune definitely did not like to lose. “Um, thank you for the staff though, I really like it, and I think I know what entments I want to put on it.”

  “Excellent. I was hoping you’d also let me look at your little slime familiar ter too, I saw a bit of what it do, and I am really curious. I’ve never seen its like before.” He smiled at her. “I am sure I arrange a gift for each of you in exge for your time.”

  The thirteen-year-old girl seemed startled that someone wao look at her slime friend, then she looked down as she nodded. “Yeah, sure, we do that. He likes to eat about anything. I mean, Bip isn’t really a ‘he’ of course, but I kind of feel like he’s a him, you know?” The prideful little kitsune seemed suddenly shy, fusing Mordecai until he felt amusement from both Moriko and Kazue.

  “You just showed geerest and curiosity about what is probably her best friend in the world.” Kazue’s thoughts came across their link, followed by Moriko.

  “And in the backsh of her dealing with her emotions after losing too. Perfect timing to be super o a fresh teen like that.”

  Oh hells no. Mordecai was thankful that the girl child was going to be occupied with her training and far enough away to not casually drop by. He also khat the best thing he could do was basically nothing, and he just hoped she got distracted by a cute boy before too long, which was generally the way these things work. In the meantime, however, “Kazue, when I go examihe little slime, you are absolutely ing with me and chatting with the girl, since you already know her.”

  Out loud he replied “Excellent, we do that after dinner. Speaking of, it looks like dinner is ready. Does anyone else have anything to add before we begin?” When no one added anything, the ganthros began serving their food.

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