Moriko lost track of time and distance as she ran, and even her wandering thoughts died down until there was nothing but the flow and rhythm of her breath and steps, chi flowing through her in perfect pace. Only when she saw the city walls in the distance did her mind focus on scious thought again. If she could see Riverbridge, then the guards would shortly be able to make her out. She started slowing down her pace a little, and tio gradually reduce her speed until she came to a walk about a hundred yards out from the walls. It was never wise to run up on a guard if you didn’t o, and even from here, she could see that the guards had tensed up at the sight of someone running toward them like that.

  When she’d gotten close enough that one of them could reize her, a subtle ripple of rexatiohrough the guards on the ground and walls alike. She greeted them and spent a few minutes chatting before tinuing on in. It was nearly the end of the day and few people were entering the city at this time, so there were no deys beyond that. What would have taken two days of casual walking had taken her less than an afternoon to run, and she barely felt the fatigue. Moriko was looking forward to the run to the capital, she inteo push herself on that.

  Both of her parents were at the shop wheered, and the only er at the time was an older woman who spent more time talking with them than shopping, but none of the shopkeepers begrudged her that time when they could afford it, and she always had the knack of ing by when there were few if any other ers.

  After exging hugs and kisses with her parents, Moriko presehe envelope Mordecai had giveo her mother. “So, this an invitation to trade with the dungeon, there’s a medie Mordecai would like you to work on for Kazue.” When her mother took the envelope there was a slight tingle, and based on what Mordecai had said before Moriko suspected that the envelope aer hadn’t been pletely ‘real’ until it had been cimed.

  “Medie? What would a dungeon need medie for?” Her father Jhaeros asked while her mother ening the letter.

  “Holy the details are a little beyond me, but her avatar is a copy of her inal body, and she’s apparently always had this issue. I assume that Mordecai wrote dowhing you o know iter.”

  “Mmm, yes, it looks like it.” Kaoru replied after sing the letter. She then used a gloved hand to pick out the leaf that had also been tained in the envelope and s before she turo the bookshelves to begin cheg on the properties of the pnt. A good alchemist or herbalist rarely relies only on information from a single source if they could help it. “And where did they get this leaf?”

  “Oh, that was from Kazue’s mom, whom I guess she ied this issue from. Oh! That reminds me, so Akahana, that’s her mom, is probably going to e by within a week or two to give you guys some pnts. Probably including a couple of the ohat leaf came from. She’s pnning on being more mobile, so wants to spread her own garden out before she hits the road to be with her lover. Speaking of whom, do you guys know a wandering mert named Ricardo?”

  Jhaeros answered while Kaoru tinued browsing books. “Assuming there’s not more thah a route through here, then yes. He es by a few times a year.” He paused a beat as he put pieces together. “He’s Kazue’s father, I take it?”

  “Got it in one Dad! Yeah, but he doesn’t know she’s been reinated, so if you see him before Akahas here, don’t let him leave until she gets her hands on him. If it’s after that and no one else has caught up to him, well, use your best judgment. But Kazue would like to see her dad again too. Alright, unless you guys have anything you o talk about, I am going to head home and take a bath. I want to head to bed after dinner a an early start in the m. I’m actually on my way to the capital.”

  “It’s a good thing I’ve already been needing to make extra tely.” her father grumbled with amusement.

  “Mm, true,” Kaoru replied. “Which reminds me Jhaeros, you should do the mixing when we figure out what binations might help the girl the most. I shouldn’t be handling such things too much right now.”

  Moriko was almost to the door before she realized that their words had been aimed at her, and she spun back towards her parents who were both carefully pretending to not watch her. “Oh e on, another one?!”

  Kaoru smirked a little. “Well, we have quite a few decades left before you start calling us middle-aged, I think we handle another little one running about.”

  Moriko just shook her head as her parents ughed at her rea. Half-elves who married as young as her parents had, had a lot of time to spread out their child-raising years, but it still felt weird to have another baby sibling on the way when Moriko was already 36. “You two shouldn’t have elf ears, you should have rabbit ears!” She muttered in mock disgust before stalking out to hide the f grin. She’d never admit it to her parents, but she loved spoiling the little ones, which as eldest was absolutely her prerogative.

  Later that night, Moriko was quite gd that she’d goo bed early. She’d already been aware that her spouses had been enjoying themselves, but Kazue had very deliberately let that ohought ‘slip’ her way, and then teased her some more by not passing on what she saw when Mordecai showed off his new forms. All she knew was that Kazue was quite pleased, if a little jealous of all the forms he had avaible.

  Mordecai was staying out of the games between his two wives, but he seemed rather bemused at some of Kazue’s reas. Moriko suspected that the man uimated exactly what a woman could find iing, as long as she was already ied in the person. What was simply weird or odd on a stranger could bee cute and attractive on a man you liked, it was rare fuy to be so repulsive that getting to know him couldn’t overe it.

  Well, since Kazue was going to insist on teasing her like this while she was gone, Moriko decided she o start plotting revenge, as she had still not bahe scales siheir library date. She’d never really explored this sort of py ih, but there was more than one way to seek variety. And there were a couple of ‘professionals’ she khat might be able to poio where she could buy certain items and maybe a couple of books. Moriko hated studying, but the other forms of learning about this topic were off-limits by her own choice, so if she wao surprise them, she’d o read up instead.

  Dealing with all that made for a more restless night than she’d intended, but it certainly got her motivated to be up before dawn and on her art of her was kind of giddy over it all, for she was disc something new. People whoing to be there for you, whom you were going to be there for, iurn, it made for a different sort of dynamiew types of games. Some of what they teased each other with and did would be insulting at best with people she knew more casually. Moriko felt safe to just do things, or at least try to, and trust that if she started to cross a lihey’d let her know. That they trusted her enough that they’d let her push their boundaries to their limits. And all of that and more she gave to them. What Kazue had doh her in the library, well, she had anticipated only that she’d enjoy pying the part because it would make Kazue happy. As for how much she e, well, it took her a bit to puzzle out that she’d only liked it so much because of how she already felt about Kazue. There were few if any of her former lovers that she could have surreo that way.

  Anticipation fueled her as she wolfed down a cold breakfast in the predawn chill. Yeah, there was something she was missing, that still itched at her mind, but Moriko was also forted by an awarehat it only mattered so much, that she would have to do something really wrong to not be weled back with warm hugs and soothing words. It made her steps feel so very light as she exited the town to the north, teasing the guards by leaping to the top of the wall and then jumping down to the ground before they could sider opening the gate. She was taking the more northern route today, the one she’d been avoiding wheumbled upon a certain cave that ged her life.

  Bellona tried not to fidget in her full dress uniform. The orc champion was fastidious about keeping her armor and normal uniform when possible, she didn’t mind that sort of effort towards keeping up appearances, but no matter how much she spent on tail the dress uniform always felt a little too stuffy and fining.

  It didn’t help that she wasn’t even fag the elders of just the Church of the Sun. No, for whatever reason she’d been called to the smaller Temple of the Twins. The retionship betweehree churches of the Sun, Moon, and Twins was plicated, but walking the path of the twins was more difficult a bang act than fog one’s worship upon a single goddess, which gave it a somewhat elite status, especially as it was officially the church that the royal family followed.

  And now this cil she was seated in front of was formed from members of all three of those churches. At least her of the Church of Passions or the Church of Shadows had felt the o be represented here, whatever was going on.

  “So after failing to capture this little ‘Ur King’ that has been causing too much trouble, you were given advice from a random, possibly elderly kitsune, whose name you failed to even ask for I might add, to seek him out in the new dungeon, and you now want the church’s permission to go hunt him down?” The speaker was an elf priest of Amirume named Ualiar. Bellona presumed he also had a bit of gnomish blood in him, given how vividly blue all of his hair was, including eyeshes and brows.

  “You’ve twisted my words.” Bellona forced herself to keep the growl out of her voice as she tinued. “While I aowledge my failures on the first two points, I am not seeking permission for anything. I am seeking guidance because I do not believe I have the knowledge or wisdom to choose a course of a. Even going alone, and assuming the kitsune’s words were true, it seems like an excess of effort to capture a single youngling who would no longer even be iy to cause trouble by then. But there is some reason that prompted the man to speak to me. Maybe his words were true, maybe it was some attempt to divert my, or the church's, attention for some reason. I find n certainty iher dire. So I gave my verbal report and immediately wrote it up as well. That is all. I await dire.”

  Today’s questioning had been going on for over an hour already, and she scratched at the back of her hand in irritation before she mao make herself sit still again. Everyone in the room carried a faint nimbus that showed they were uhe pulsion of truth-telling magic, but while making a false statement was impossible, asking an incorrect question was not, and the stant slight ges in w felt like attempts to catch her out in some teicality. As if she had the skill to verbally spar with precise ws like that.

  A new voice spoke up, interrupting the current flow of the proceedings. “Alright, that’s enough. We stop questioning the pirl.” Bellona’s eye twitched. She was ‘only’ een, but orcs were adults by twelve, and she’d been a blooded warrior at her full height by fourteen. Her species’ fast growth came with a correspondingly shorter life, but that was the way of this world sometimes.

  However, she kept her thoughts to herself as the halfling who had spoken hopped down from his chair. Some tall folk found it innately amusing to see the shorter folk ing down from chairs not meant for them, but Bellona was already taller than everyone else in the room, and short adults like halflings and dwarves mostly just made her vaguely unfortable, like she could stumble over them without realizing it at any moment.

  Of course, stumbling over this halfling would have ended poorly for her. Amator Helmbreaker was a champion of The Twins, and had been marked by the kingdom as a protector decades ago. His sigil had directed him to be trained by giants, and to her uanding he had been trained by five different s before the sigil had marked his training plete. This had somehow garnered him the strength of a jotun, which is how he had earned his sed name.

  “I believe that I speak for the gods and the Kingdom alike in expressing my plete fiden the ss. In her loyalty, iruth of her heart, and in her general petend skill.” He’d walked over to her while he talked, hands csped behind his back. “Though, perhaps catg urs is not quite your forte, eh?” Amator chuckled at his joke and ighe peculiar looks he was getting. One of which was from Bellona. She felt eerily like some sort of trap was closing in on her.

  “I do apologize about this little circus show. This was just a final test before we made one of a few decisions, and I am g the authority to make it.” There was a slight ripple through the gathered church members at his strange w, and Bellona couldn’t bme them. She was feeling even more out of sorts than she had a few minutes ago, and it was making the itchy feeling from her uniform worse.

  “I think we’ll be asking you to head to this dungeon a its cores and avatars. Yes, plural. There are two, Mordecai and Kazue. We’ve already gotten some reports, and they seem like a friendly couple, and possibly more than that as their traoriko seems entangled romantically with them as well, but our nation does not have any perma representation. So the would like to ask you to go there as our representative, with permission to iate should the need arise, and further permission and mild encement to bee a tractor if they will take you. Furthermore, if you decide to go, you will be furnished with a small gift from the kingdom, some goods that are a gift from the kingdom to you so that you may iate a trade should there be something of be to you, and a strong suggestion that you figure out a gift that would be from you. We’ve dug into our archives to fis from people who have traveled to the other dungeons, it seems written knowledge and rare goods are the primary desires for dungeons, especially young ones.”

  Bellona’s head swam with the sudden rush of information and quick ge in the dire of the versation. “Um, My Lord, I don’t quite uand what is going on here, this doesn’t seem to have anything to do with what we were talking about before.”

  Amator snorted. “Be careful whom you call lord, you might e tret it.” He looked amused, Bellona just felt further fused. “Holy, I don’t care one way or another, should you run into our little criminal mastermind, act as you find appropriate. However, what I just described was one of the paths that had already been decided on, depending oe of today’s versation. There’s something else that has caught my attention, and I think it’s going to create quite a dey in our pns.” She could feel the jaws of the trap closing in, but still couldn’t see it, let alone escape it.

  “Tell me, my felloion, how many orcs have been marked as protectors of the kingdom?” His question was not helping her feel better, and she answered with a growing sense of dread.

  “Just one.”

  “Hmm, and that would be your cousin Kansif, correct?” At her mute nod, he tinued. “Well, I have it on rather good authority that you are slightly off on your t, by about 50%.” The halfling’s smile was starting to look malicious to her. Then he uncsped his hands from behind his bad showed her the back of his left hand. It bore a sigil of a shield, marking him as a protector of the kingdom, and behind that was a mountain, representing the strength of the giants. It was faintly glowing, and her left hand began to itch like mad. “I think you should remove ylove.”

  She ripped off the glove, not g as the stitg broke under her rough handling. Upon the back of her hand y a sigil with a nearly identical shield, surrounded by symbols representing fire, earth, wind, and water. “e on ss, lower your hand so I see.” Bellona numbly plied, her mind bnk with shock.

  “Oh, that’s a rare one, I’ve never actually seen it. But I do believe it means you are off to train with the Jinn. And for all four basic elements too! gratutions, Lady Bellona. And I thought my training regimen was hard.”

  Well, fuck.

  Zagaroth