While Moriko was off on her run, Mordecai and Kazue were doing the finishing touches on a new room, which Mordecai had dubbed their ‘War Room’. There wasn’t much to it really, a circur room with several seats around a low ‘table’, and some more seating suitable for lounging around the edges of the room. The key was that the table iion was actually a short pilr growing out of the ground, and Mordecai was using that e to weave the final bits of an entment. Above that pilr was an illusion representing a tactical view of the entire dungeon, though certainly its scale was off and insistent to fit the spatial ing that art and parany advanced dungeon builds. Most five-floor dungeons would not have delved into creating strange spaces, but with Mordecai knowing more about what could be dohey were able to pull tricks that other dungeons wouldn’t learn until ter.

  The room was Kazue’s idea if Mordecai’s to execute, but you wouldn’t know that based on what the kitsune was doing. ormenting their wife with teasing ideas about what they were actually doing, many of which Mordecai found dubious to their practicality. Now, teically, he could set the record straight, and there would be many who would say that it would be more hoo do so. Those are people whom Mordecai would try to gently correct, and sider fools if they would not learn.

  The games that people close to each other py are already plicated enough. And the two women were definitely pying games with each other. Mordecai was not foolish enough to step into these games. Even without the plication of the three-persoionship, stepping into games like this uninvited was a good way to get people mad at you. So with that in mind, he kept his thoughts very carefully ral, and would only step in if he thought one of them was about to hurt the other.

  Which he found unlikely given that the reason Kazue had suggested the room was to make it easier for Moriko to learn the dungeon yout and suggest ideas. The trols for maniputing the illusion manually were in a ring around the pilr, and would only respond to the three of them, or future tractors. As a safety feature, the illusion would automatically turn off if none of them were in the room, and would only turn on if deliberately activated. It couldn’t manipute the dungeon, but information was a useful on too.

  Now that the hologram was finished, Kazue tested it out by maniputing it both mentally and through the physical trols to make sure they were intuitive enough for people who hadn’t built it. “That looks good. Now I have a question.” She poi a n in the ter of the sewer spiral, with a tinual spring entment at the top keeping it full. The os for the water were a series of small tuhat Mordecai had been tweaking and then using to fire streams of water at the slimes. “What is going on there and why are you attag the sewer slimes with it?”

  Mordecai smiled slightly. “I’m testing out binations of pressure and aperture size and shape. I’ve probably got the data somewhere in my stored memories, but I’d have to hunt for it and I don’t know how much it’s attached to. So it seemed best to just duct experiments now.”

  “Uh-huh.” She said dubiously, looking to see if he was going to offer up more crification. He amused himself by just keeping up that small smile which offered nothing. “Ooh, that’s just aggravating. Obviously, it has something to do with that water entment you want Aia to get you, but yoing to insist on being mysterious. Fine, keep your secrets, a dungeon-man.” She stuck her to, then turned her attention back to the illusion. “Alright, do we want to start w on filling out floor five, then?”

  “Mmm, I get the temptation to rush, our instincts urge us to do it and each floor does add to our direct power, but I think we’d be better off with a little bit of redesign. We’re still a long way off from brute force being our best bet, so we should take advantage of what we’ve learned and our neabilities to spruce things up, and then work on going deeper with everything else in pce. And here’s the first thing I want to ge. We made some redirect-type traps for each floor to shuffle off actual hostiles to the sewer system if we didn’t detect them oop floor, but I don’t think that’s taking full advantage of what we have avaible. It just redirects them terally. And we saw how much having a ce to eople down help. What if we ge it so that we have the redirect trap at the level exit? Instead of going down, the new path leads them to a tight spiral up, eventually f them out into the top of the sewers?”

  “Oh, that sounds effective. And the deeper we are, the lohe spiral up, exhausting them even more!” She paused, then looked at him with a sigh. “You wao do it, don’t you?”

  Mordecai hesitated a moment before answering. “Sort of. I mean, yes, in that I want to teach you how to do this, that I think you o be able to do this. But also no, in that I wish I didn’t think it necessary to push you. Unfortunately, to grow you o be able to leave the dungeon. I’ve seen what has happened with dungeons who for whatever reasoreated into themselves pletely. It has never ended well. And expl the world, well, it sounds like this new kingdom is retively safe, but few pces are always safe and you’ll o go beyond those safe borders at some point. I won’t insist if you say no, but I will bring it up again at a ter point.”

  Kazue’s teasing of Moriko over their link had stopped, and Mordecai sent Moriko a quick message to let her know everything was fine, but a subject had e up that broke the mood. Then he simply waited.

  Her tone was very somber when she did respond. “If I do this, if I make this right, and we ever have to use it, then people are going to die from what I made. Because I made it to kill them. I, I don’t like that idea at all, Mordecai.”

  “I know love. But no matter how much magic I teach you, no matter how much Moriko trains you to fight, if you ’t make that itment to defend yourself at all costs, and you two are in suffit danger, it could get really bad. Your avatar being killed might not be a true death for you, but outside of this dungeon, Moriko doesn’t have that prote. And, well, all things sidered, death isn’t the worst possible oute for you. You ’t just abandon your avatar body if you don’t like your situation; the avatar self be rendered as helpless as any other being. There’s a reason Moriko was so willing to move up to breaking bohe moment her boundaries were crossed.”

  Kazue frow him, looking annoyed. “And what would you know of it? It’s not like it’s a problem you’ve had to face.”

  Mordecai didn’t take actual offense, he reized her anger as a rea to the way he ushing, a defense against taking this step that would force her to redefine herself if she took it. But his toill sharpened. “Kazue.” She winced slightly, realizing that she’d made a mistake. He tio make sure she uood exactly what her mistake was. “I was creating avatars for turies, eae starting fresh in skill and power, and me as immuo being assaulted as your ent implies. Furthermore, while I settled on a male identity as w best for me, I experimented with several geypes aany species. I don’t have access to exaough memories to verify one way or another, but do you really think that across all that time, across all those starts, none of my avatars had to deal with it? That none ever had to cope with the worst oute?”

  Kazue was looking at the floor, and she took a deep breath when he was done. “You’re right. That was stupid.” She sniffed. “Mordecai, I’m scared of doing this. I’ve never really had to hurt anything before, not even normal animals. Which I know is kind of hypocritical, I’ve eate, I’ve worher, and I’ve beed from the results of other people killing animals. But the thought of doing something that is desigo deliberately kill people hurts.”

  She looked up at him, her green eyes dark a. “But I do get it. Heh. I told you I read a lht? In some stories, a stubbirl would refuse to start learning that bit, and theate in a fight, and someone would have to protect her, they’d get badly hurt, and maybe die. And that’d be Moriko here. Well, I am not going to let that happen. So just give me a few more moments.”

  Mordecai stepped up to her, ing his arms around her and holding her close. He’d been holding batil they fialking it through and she’d made a decision about whether she was going to do it today or ter. He leased that she’d seen her own way through to this, but he wasn’t happy about how she was going to feel for a while.

  After a short while, she took a deep breath and lightly pressed on his chest. “OK, I’m ready.” He let go and moved behind her as she faced the hologram once more. “Well, this first part is easy enough.” He watched as she did exactly as he had described, then copied the slick slope and drop he’d made at the primary entrance. But he’d not finished making it as deadly as he really could, there had been some potential to use it as a ‘just lethal enough’ option if someone o be taught a lesson. The strohey got, the more it meant that putting someone on this path was fully inteo kill them. “So, at the bottom of the drop, spikes, right?” Kazue’s voice was strained.

  He leaned forward to kiss the back of her head, then whispered. “Steel that’s just starting to rust. Obsidian. Fibrous machite. Rough textured, splintering hardwoods. Sharpened Bamboo. Edge them with small bdes, with hooks and back barbs. Make no part of the surface safe to touch.” Kazue was shivering as she followed his guidahe sewer route no longer held any options of mercy. This was a death pit, and Kazue had both imagination ahy in abundance. “Now, you test it, or do you wao?”

  “I .” She whispered. “I’ll make myself watch it too, with my full senses.” She created a human body at the top of the slope. They had all the information to create life, making a dead body was even easier. The body slid down the slick, wet rock, flew off the edge of that slide, and arced down into the pit. The results were messy. Kazue got sick.

  Mordecai had been expeg that and held her from behind as she retched, keeping her from falling too hard as she colpsed. He made sure to sweep her hair bad hold it for her, even as he started using dungeon magiove the sick out of the room and up the smell as fast as possible to ner her again. He was effit enough to make sure to move that mass to the sewers for disposal, and more than wise enough to never mention that it had not just vely ‘disappeared.' He doubted she wao be aware that her own sick had beeo help feed the slimes. She was too smart to not know he’d done something with it, but also smart enough to know that she did not waails.

  “It’s okay, you did well, love. But you’re done now, you rex. Shh.” He held her as her reas started to subside, and she eventually curled up into a ball in his p, g about being sorry for being a wimp. “Don’t let yourself think that way, Kazue. Empathy is never something to be ashamed of. It’s part of what makes people good.”

  It took about fifteen minutes for her to calm down pletely, and even then she was rather embarrassed that she’d had that rea. But that was why he’d pushed her to experie least this muow, where it was safe for her to just read recover. Mordecai suspected that Kazue was going to be the type who always got sick after a real fight, but as long as she was willing to work on it then they could make sure she wouldn’t be sitil it was safe.

  Speaking of safe. “Kazue, let’s take a little break, and after that, I show you some safety stuff to make sure nothis out of the sewer, and then we work on sedary floor bosses, okay?” Creating and enhang life was not as direct a threat of violence, and she was much better at that.

  “Yeah, OK. That sounds good. Um, I think I o go to the washroom for a bit. I know, magic already took care of everything, but I’ll feel better. And maybe you make some sted dles or something? If there isn’t another st, I’ll keep imagining it.” Kazue shakily got back to her feet as she spoke, and he followed.

  “Of course, love,” he replied and gave her a light kiss, which surprised her and made her blush briefly. “I’ll take care of everything here, you do what you o do.”

  “Really, you kissed me after that? Even with magic, right after, I,” she shook her head to interrupt herself. “Thank you.” She fihen walked out to go get ed up.

  Zagaroth