Mordecai opened his eyes to find himself in a familiar antechamber decorated in deep, rich colors with just a little bit of gilding along the edges. His presence felt a little bit ‘thihan his limited memories would suggest, but he hadn’t bee a devotee of Ozuran’s until well after he’d made his first awakened avatar, and hadn’t ever tried this meditation using just a normal avatar before.

  There was only one way out, as the entire purpose of this room was to give dreaming visitors a ce to orient themselves, and after Mordecai double-checked himself to make sure that his subscious hadn’t ged his form in any ued ways he stepped through the curtained doorway.

  The twilight courtyard in front of him hadn’t ged in overall appearaher, but then most gods felt little o ge designs they were happy with. Or Ozuran had made a refle that Mordecai would be familiar with. Either way, Mordecai was happy to see this familiar pce again. Casually meandering paths of soft white stone and high-arched bridges made their way through a carefully crafted and tended ndscape of small trees, gently gurgling streams filled with brightly colored fish, and sculptures of rod sand. These paths brought a visitor te covered pavilion of red and gold decorated with ribbons of cloth and strings of paper nterns in a variety of colors. In the ter of that pavilion sat a throne, upon which a ailed kitsu and waited for Mordecai.

  But there was something new here. To Ozuran’s right stood a six-tailed kitsune girl in a dark purple belted tunid well-fitted but loose-legged leather pants that tucked into short boots, and one of those tails had a familiar form of smokey shadow instead of being a normal fox tail. On Ozuran’s left side stood a human girl with long blue hair wearing a shih, slightly cy bck dress and heavy boots.

  Mordecai walked along the most direct route to the pavilion and bowed deeply right before the steps leading up to it. “Good evening Lord Ozuran.” Mordecai said as he held the bow, eyes down so that he could barely make out Ozuran’s hands. Normally he would not have been quite this formal, but things had been tense of te.

  There ause just a beat lohan normal before he heard a sigh from Ozuran. “Enough. Stand up. I won’t pretend my ire has disappeared entirely, I had to wait over two thousand years before I could finally yell at you properly only to find you making a cozy little home with two beautiful new wives you’d mao rope into helping you out. But I am not going to make you stand on formalities either, we know each other far too well. And outside of that particur issue, you’ve always served me well. Let me introduce you to two of my devotees, from a far-distant realm.” Ozuran’s description had both young women giving Mordecai curious looks, but they held their obvious questions for now.

  Mordecai straightened from his bow as Ozuran tinued. “This is Tsukiko,” the kitsuarted to curtsy before she remembered that she was not wearing a dress and bowed instead, “And this is Zelda.” The blue-haired girl curtsied with reasonable grace but a slight awkwardhat showed she didn’t do it often. “I would like you both to meet a long-time priest and friend of mine, Mordecai.” Mordecai bowed briefly to each of the girls, then looked back to Ozuran.

  “So, ‘rare’ was the new description I believe?” Mordecai couldn’t resist the temptation to tease. Ozuran had already indicated he wao work towards normalizing their retionship again, and if they weren’t going to be formal, well, Mordecai was not terribly ined towards subservience. “Has the position of my lord and master’s favorite been stolen away?” He asked as he goward Tsukiko and her shadow-touched tail.

  ave him a level stare for a moment, then pletely ighe question. “So what has brought you to the realm of dream and shadows this night? You’ve been rather busy so while I am actually happy to see you again, I doubt this is just a social visit.” Tsukiko retending thten her clothing while Zelda smirked at her disfiture.

  “What is the purpose of a Living Dungeon, what is the retionship between dungeon magid I, and a thought has been bugging me retly about the creative aspect of dungeon magic.” Mordecai said simply, ahat statement hang there with its implied questions.

  “Wait wait, living dungeon? Oz, wha-” Tsukiko began, then coughed when the god gave her a pointed look. The kitsune girl then proceeded to pretend that she’d not just given him a niame. “Um, Ozuran. What does he mean by a living dungeon?” Mordecai was amused by the niame, which also ged that first sylble from ‘oh-z’ to ‘ah-z’, but given that Ozuran did not seem to care for it, let none of his amusement show. For now.

  The god shook his head at the girl’s slip, then answered her question, making sure that Zelda could hear him as well, given how she was curiously leaning in. “You would not know of them, as your realm does not have them. But in my home realm, there are creatures of crystal and magic who gain dominion over a small space, and the creatures that live there. They also gain the ability to form avatars for their mind to trol, as their real body is an immobile crystal sphere. What you see before you is Mordecai’s avatar, shaped through his dreams much as your own bodies here have been shaped of yours.”

  Now Ozuran turned his attention baordecai and smiled. “You know, I was expeg you to have figured some of that out a long time ago, but you had stopped thinking about how yic worked when you didn’t have a pressing goal. Maybe this new life is going to do you good in more ways than one.” He paused thoughtfully then rose from his seat. “This may take a while, let us go to a more fortable setting. This will be the first time for you two, there’s been much else to show you.”

  Ozuran led his guests towards the back of the pavilion, where a discrete door awaited in the wall of the courtyard. The door opened upon a different outdoor se, a thick forest just barely lit by the moon and the occasional lumi i or fungus. It would be too dark for most to see fortably in, but it was no trouble for Mordecai, and judging by their reas both of the girls could see just fioo.

  The sight brought a painful sort of relieved happio Mordecai. The courtyard was freeting visitors, this area rivate and special to Ozurae their earlier words, Mordecai still felt uain about where in Ozuran’s graces he sat, and he knew he wouldn’t be invited here, if the god was still terribly unhappy with him.

  As the group started to move forward, Mordecai suddenly jumped a little, making a strangled sound as he tried to trol his rea. The others turo look at him with various levels of surprise and as Mordecai regained his posure. “I apologize, one of my wives was being badly behaved.”

  “Stop that!” he sent, but the giggling, not very sincere sounding apology he got in reply was not as f as he’d like.

  The focus of Ozuran’s eyes shifted for a moment, then he smirked. “Oh, I see. You do not get any sympathy from me in that regard. You’ll have to cope with your torment.” At the bemused looks of his uests, ave a partial expnation. “Because of his nature, Mordecai is not fully asleep. So he is able to notice things going on near his body, and one of his two wives decided to amuse herself. The result is as you see.” He gestured toward the somewhat disgruntled Mordecai before heading back toward the woods. “e on now.”

  There was but a sirail to follow, and when all had passed ihe door behind them vanished, leaving only the trees. The trail led to a small clearing with several rge sitting cushions artfully strewn about upon a rge rug in the ter of the clearing. Off to the side was a small, outdoor brick oven, the top of which was being used to heat water for tea. A woman in a flowing dress of shadows teo the tea.

  “Feel free to look around or to join us.” Ozuran said to Tsukiko and Zelda. “We’re going to be discussing some matters that have little bearing upon your world, but you are free to join the versation if you want.” The young women looked at each other, then at the mysteriously glowing forest around them, and promptly headed off to go expl together, moving in experienced synization.

  Mordecai gnced after the disappearing pair, noting the ge in body nguage. “Not pampered city dwellers I take it.” He said, theled onto one of the cushions.

  “No,” Ozuran replied as he settled onto a cushion nearby. “And expl together should keep them from fighting like sisters for a little while. They are part of the leadership of a traveling circus actually, and have been involved with fixing the mistakes of a dead god.” The line was delivered with rather deliberate casualness.

  Mordecai couldn’t help but stare at his lord for a moment. “That makes me want to ask so many questions, but I suspect that would take far too long for tonight’s business.”

  Ozuran nodded. “Indeed.” He smiled slightly. “It’s probably best that they left, Zelda might have been distracted otherwise.” Mordecai’s god seemed rather amused at some private joke, and he puzzled over it while the woman who had been tending to the kettle now glided gracefully around the cushions to kneel down and smoothly pce a small table o them and position a silver tray with teapot and cups upon it.

  Mordecai accepted his cup and gave the woman a nod. “Thank you.” Then he paused and looked at the woman more closely. This close up, the shadow dress no longer hid the presence of the woman’s wings, or the thin tail she kept coiled about her waist, and small, almost cute horns could be seen poking through her hair. A simple touch of fiendish blood could put such marks upon mortal flesh, but there was a faint aura that marked a fiend who was not actively hiding it, and Mordecai knew how to pick up it. “A succubus, my lord?” He asked in fusion.

  “For now. She’s in training, and being something more. Mordecai, this is Lena. Lena, this is an old friend of mine, Mordecai.”

  “A pleasure to meet a friend of my lord’s.” Lena murmured as she finished serving the tea, then rose. “I hope you enjoy your visit.” She turned and walked back to where she had been before, settling on a cushio off a little ways from the oven to wait until her services were needed.

  Mordecai couldn’t resist a question this time. “I have to know at least the basic story on this.”

  Ozuran chuckled. “It’s simpler than you might think. Lena es from the same realm as Tsukiko and Zelda. Their party had captured the succubus, and she made promises to them in exge for being released. They had her swear in my name, directly to one of my other devotees in that group. Lena had not heard of me before and assumed I was some new or minor deity and that she could readily break a promise made in my hout sequence. She was quite wrong, and I was quite iivized to act given how few tacts I had on that world at that time. Then I had to figure out what to do with her. And you know me, Mordecai, I care about choices. So I showed her a potential future version of herself, a more elegant and less fearful creature if she chose to learn and work for it. She agreed.”

  “And the work she is doing now?”

  “Multifaceted; patiehe satisfa of doing a job done well for its own sake instead of a reward, how to serve without being subservient, self-restraint, how to observe and to truly listen to what is being said instead of hearing just the words, or what one expects or hopes the words to be sayic.”

  “So, the dangerous sort of diplomatic being then,” Mordecai replied with a smile. “Thank you for indulging in my curiosity, and I hope you will indulge me a bit more.”

  “Mmm,” Ozuran replied thoughtfully before sipping at his tea. “I o go into some background to expin your questions in full, and some of what I will say will be sidered Secret Lore, with all the attendant responsibility thereof.”

  Mordecai sidered that for a moment but was not surprised. While knowledge and prehension were necessary parts of free will, knowledge could also be dangerous. Secret Lore was to be handed out judiciously, and a bearer of said lore was at least in part responsible if ahey gifted with the knowledge abused it. “I uand.”

  Ozuran hen expined. “The creation lore that all of the progenitor deities have passed down is correct, but of y extremely g iail. One of those details is Li’s part iablishing the bance of the universe. Father invited him to the early moments of creation, and simply had his friend talk with him and tell him some of Li’s favorite stories, thus introdug a benign influence of chaos.” He smiled. “And uand, this part is sed-hand, as my sister and I came about ter in the creation cycle. But as it was told to me, part of Li’s influence was to weave in the possibility of Living Dungeons.”

  Mordeodded, this lined up with what Ozuran had said during his st surprise visit. “So before your mother and aunt seduced Zagaroth.”

  The kitsuy’s face took on a slightly pained expression. “Please, even the gods do not wish to discuss their parents ‘retions’. That part is expined well enough elsewhere, and I will not be going into it here.” He took a breath and then tinued. “Towards the end of the first phase of the creation cycle, Father examihe potential sequences of such creations, and reized that unchecked Living Dungeons would be very dangerous, yet her did he wish to attempt to undo Li’s tribution. He sidered if he should make rules ive another dominion, and, well, I get my talent for seeing future patterns from him, so he chose to dey that decision and temporarily repressed them. In good time, he gave the design and implementation of those rules to me, and only when my work was plete did he allow them to begin to ma.”

  “I see.” Mordecai replied, choosing to not point out that this implied Zagaroth had an insight he was about to be seduced. He sipped at his tea, then paused. “That hoastes familiar.”

  Ozuran fshed him a grin. “Well, as long as I am currently giving you so muy personal attention, I might as well take advantage of sampling iing things you produce. Which brings up a point, generally the monit of a dungeon is taken care of by one of my umabel, with one usually being suffit for all the living dungeons on a given world, but all things sidered, it seemed appropriate to give you a touch more of my attention. The two of you now have a dedicated umabel, who keeps me updated quite regurly.”

  That was, well, not a horrible thing, but still a touch discerting. “Uandable. I hope we will not have to invenience your servant for too long.” Mordecai also trusted that the divine shade had a sense of discretion.

  “Indeed. So, now we have text for my making decisions. I enjoy being effit where appropriate, so your species has several purposes in the world, in addition to the freedom to find your personal focus in life. The first is as a limited mana sink. Without refi or limitation, Li’s cept of a dungeon core otentially endless devourer of energy to use for their own purpose. With straints and rules, a dungeon bees a natural regutor instead, easily abs excess mana in their area. This synergizes with another purpose, a pce for the strong to find a way to test against challenges without encing rampant hunting and endless warring. I hold no illusions that it would ever put ao such things, merely to mitigate. And it has worked, with at least oable exception.” ave Mordecai a pointed look, then took a moment to enjoy his tea.

  Ah. Well. That would be another yer of set Ozuran. A purpose was not the same as a rule, but his war would have been directly in opposition to that purpose. On the flip side, it could be said that the cult had decred war on him first, but Mordecai had other options avaible to him. He had teically chosen to escate, but, well, he certainly had reason to be enraged. A situation with endless shades of gray and differences of opinion.

  After giving Mordecai a moment to take in that information, Ozuran tinued. “Simirly, a dungeon’s ability te mana directly into matter be a way to trade for hard-to-get materials, redug the o war over limited supplies. I was also hoping that mortal experimenters would be more ined to work with dungeons for creating new life forms and such, but I have seen minimal impa that regard. There are some very ‘iing’ hybrids running about that have not been trialed in a dungeon enviro first.” Ozuran shook his head at that. “And somehow, in every single world with suffitly talented mages, someone has decided it’s a great idea to put bird heads onto bears. Owls, Eagles, even parrots! Thankfully the only wizard who mao get a terror bird’s head to grow on a rge enough bear’s body romptly eaten before he could repeat the mistake and make a breeding pair."

  It gave Mordecai something to think about. He’d never sidered suggesting to a mage that they could work together oing new creatures, but would a dungeon actually need a wizard’s help beyond providing ideas? And any imaginative person could do that. But it seems that Ozuran had already realized that particur part of his idea had failed. “That makes sehough I am not currently seeing why you gave us avatars then.”

  “Oh, that’s simple, Mordecai.” Ozuran’s smile was very gentle now, and a touch paternal. “You and your kind are my responsibility, but I am also responsible towards you. An isoted being in a remote location that dealt too mu death would have great difficulty in being a person. In a dungeon’s rawest form, an avatar inside of your own enviro would not have been an unon development, but an avatar that could leave would have been very rare and difficult. So I used the weight of the rules and limitations I imposed to make that part easier. I never saw your species as simply things, I wanted you to be able to live fully as well, and I could give you all this at least.”

  “Oh.” Mordecai shifted his weight slightly, taken off guard. “Well, on behalf of all of us, I thank you then.” That sounded so awkward and formal, but what do you say to something like that? Words of gratitude seemed insuffit for the task. “I, well, I don’t know what else to say.” While having a body that could go out a people and form close bonds did have its dowhe pain of loss was far outweighed by the joy that could be found in that more expanded life. Mordecai stared down into his tea, feeling at a bit of a loss. It meant so mu, and he felt his eyes start to water. This simple decision, this act of kio give a little more personal meaning to a dungeon’s life, it was so much of who he was.

  “It’s okay.” Ozuran said softly, then put his cup aside and rose to move o Mordecai and an arm around his shoulder, pulling him close. “I know things have been difficult, but you should know that I am proud of you. And it’s why your as angered me so much, it hurt to have you break my trust, and to see you break your own codes by hurting so many is in your war. But that doesn’t ge how I feel about you.”

  Mordecai’s emotional perspective shifted slightly at that moment. He’d long seen Ozuran as not just a god to worship, but a respected figure to look up to and as a friend. But now, for the first time in his loehis dungeon uood what it was like to have a father, and he cried. Despite having done his best to be a father before, he’d never felt this side of the retionship, and it was more precious to him than he’d have ever expected.

  Ozuran held him while Lena brought over some hand towels and patted his shoulder sympathetically befiving them some space again. When Mordecai recovered, Ozuran resumed his seat and waited patiently. “I’m sorry for that, I don’t know why that affected me so much.” Mordecai was embarrassed a out of sorts, and didn’t know what to do with himself suddenly.

  “It’s alright.” Ozuran said. “I uand. I see you all as my children to a certaient, but I also do not wish to impose my will upon any of you. You are one of the few who have not only chosen to be my follower, and then a devotee, but to also know me more personally. And it makes me very happy that you have.”

  Mordeodded, then took a breath. “Well, I guess we should move on to the part of why I am here. So, about i and the nature of dungeon magid its rules…”

  Ozuran chuckled. “Yes, it’s as you suspect. My values of pg the spirit of a bargain or rule above the letter means you bend the rules, within limits. But you do have to make the i explicitly clear first. It’s automatic, if subject to review for abuse, so it is depe upon your uanding of your i. As for the details a limits, well, that I think is best for you to discover.”

  “That is fair and more iing for me. So, the st question that has been w its way into my mind.” He hesitated, not sure exactly how to phrase it without sounding potentially arrogant, so started to lead the way there instead of asking directly. “So, dungeons have enormous capabilities iion magics. We even gee real life, life that has a spirit or soul acc to its nature.” Ozuran nodded, his expression calm and giving no clue as to his thoughts.

  Which Mordecai interpreted as meaning that Ozuran kly where this was going, but Mordecai had to actually ask, or at least get closer to the question. “And some of what you said previously has made me realize that you could only have directly intervened in my war with signifit effort.” He paused, but Ozuran still waited silently. “Why would a god find it so difficult to interfere with a living dungeon?”

  Ozuran’s response was more of a twitch of his lips than a real smile. “Now, that st part is thankfully rarer for dungeons to realize, and even more thankfully you are asking, not ag. There are some wrong clusions that be made which has driven more than a few dungeons mad. That never ends well.” He sighed somewhat morosely. “And I rather wish you hadn’t made those es, but at least you didn’t realize it when you were enraged. Let’s make ohing clear first. You. Are. Not. Gods.”

  Mordecai wi the emphasis, but nodded in uanding. Ozuran tinued, “While you wield powers of creation and limited abilities to reality itself, dungeons do not have the Divine Spark, making for a qualitative differen ability, and even a duhe size of aire world is still g in nigh infinite magnitudes of raw power. But for a non divinity, a dungeon’s abilities inside of its territory are immensely powerful. Fod to csh with a dungeon is to have the powers of creation g, backed by wills with the knowledge and ability to shape the nature of reality. A full deity would always win such a test if ag at their full strength, but there would be immense backsh.”

  Then he gestured towards Mordecai. “You were aremely powerful dungeon, and ag in your full power. The ability to defend yourself from invaders with a Break is not an ability that empowers you. It is the removal of a limiter. With as aggressive as you were being, shoving all your power out into the rest of the world, I couldn’t have even walked an avatar in through yate without our wills and powers g enough to damage the ti. So while yes, I could have intervened, it would have been a case of the cure being worse than the disease.”

  Limiter? Hmm. “And the discrete differences in morength by floors?” This pattern was beginning to finally make sense, and that restri was also lifted during a break.

  “Simir, though in this case in part to create both a more fair enviro for challenges, and to challehe dungeons to be more creative. Your current dual-core existeh Kazue has some potential to break the intended power curve, but you’ve already been responsible about not doing that, so I have seen no reason to start creating special rules unless it somehoens again and that other party is less responsible.”

  They sat in quiet for a moment as Mordecai tried to think of anything else relevant. “I have o question then, I think. My third route, how does that fit with your i?” Part of him didn’t want t it up in case Ozuran did have something to say about it, but this was one bandage best taken off early if needed.

  “Oh, that’s fi’s reasonably clever, is intended for emergency use only, and while it does give you some adva also gives you the challenge of needing to keep on guard, as the mohere are a potential dao the rest of the dungeon. Good choi setting up a system to keep aggressive sgers fed enough to not try hard to escape.”

  “Thank you. Hmm. Well, that finishes what I had to ask.” He didn’t know what else to say after that, but it seemed Ozuran had something he’d been wanting to say.

  “Excellent. Now, onto other matters. Mordecai, I owe you an apology.” Mordecai was caught off guard, and could only stare as Ozuran tinued. “While my ire is justified on many levels, in addition to you being a priest I sider you a very dear friend. Yet twiow I have been to your home without being a good guest, and that is not acceptable. I am sorry.” Ozuran bowed his head, and Mordecai hastily responded.

  “No, no, it’s okay my lord. I uand, and while I don’t think you need my fiveness sidering the situation if you want it, you more than have it.” Having one's god apologize to you was discerting.

  Ozuran shook his head. “I am gd you feel that way, but I did not behave appropriately. And, well,” He smiled a bit. “I am the sort who o bahe scales. I am choosing my own way to do so of course, and I think you will reize my touch wheime is right, but as for outes,” Here Ozuran shrugged. “Well, I am providing opportunities for choices. Locked fates and unavoidable prophecies are ao the way the universe was created, so I ot tell for sure what will happen. But I am doing my best to help you out in the long run.”

  While Mordecai did not doubt Ozuran’s siy, he also did not doubt that Ozuran chose to tug events towards a path that would help himself as well in some way. The trickery of a kitsuhe stubbornness of a dragon, the power of a god, and the g of a friend. What was oo do in the face of such forces, except to accept it? “Thank you.” He replied, once more feeling the words to be ie.

  Ozuran smiled. “You are more than wele. And that takes care of everything we o have cleared off the table, so I want a touch of gossip.” Mordecai raised a brow in surprise, with perhaps a bit of wary caution. “I’ve been rather curious, my friend. As much as it irritated me given my already sour mood at the time, I am a touch impressed that you wound up married to two women you barely knew in as many days, immediately after being awakened from two thousand years of sleep. What has your personal life been like? You’ve seemed happy, but we’ve not had the ce to talk, and this is very different from anything you experienced before.”

  Mordecai chucked as he rexed. “Well, you are right about me being happy. At first, I was just happy to be alive and free of the spell, so I was more than willing to help out the women who had helped me out. But that bond,” He shook his head. “I truly did ihe marriage ceremony to be mostly a carrier for more energy. But when yered with the others, it reinforced their strength in ways I wasn’t expeg. The ease of knowing each other's sincere feelings, making it nearly impossible to misinterpret each other, the closeness aional intimacy of having our souls lihat tightly, and simply everything that was happening, it was hard to not love them.” He sidered a moment. “Well, I see some binations of people having the opposite effect, but thankfully not us.”

  It was good to be able to talk with Ozuran like this again. He hadn’t liked how things had beeween them but had not wao presume too much, so had deyed visiting until he’d had questions that he needed ao. The time seems to have helped his god’s temper cool a bit as well. So they talked for hours more, awakening old habits. He wouldn’t be ing too often, not with the current pace of his life, but it was o have this retreat avaible to him once more.

  Zagaroth