Moriko sat ba preparation to view the wo floors worth of battles. While she would be watg with enough attention to pick apart any growing strategies or synergies, she was not expeg the fights to be terribly eaining. Zushi was not a typical floor boss, as he had the extra power of also being a raid boss; and Ryohoho had been fighting with a power boost from the boss upgrade ability that Mordecai had maed when the dungeon expao six floors. Unfortunately, it didn’t scale, so while that ability would make the several bosses strohaherwise would be against a smaller, weaker party, they wouldn’t improve more than that siep even against a party like the ohey faced.

  So to eain herself she id cim to one of Kazue’s tails, drawing the length of red fluff out across her p and slowly petting it. And Moriko did find the kitsune’s muffled sound of surprise to be very eaining, as well as how Kazue was doing her best to not squirm as Moriko’s fieased their way uhe soft fur, alternatiweele grooming and light scritches.

  On the couch oblique to them, Akahana’s ear twitched, and she looked over at them with a frown. Moriko gave her a cheeky smile while raising an eyebrow, then directed her gaze to where a couple of Akahana’s tails y across Ricardo’s p. The older kitsune woman looked away without ent, and Moriko retty certain that she was blushing uhat fur.

  That was one of the things Moriko liked about Kazue’s hybrid form. The ears and tails were fun to py with, but she appreciated not having to cope with fur everywhere else. The best of both worlds.

  While Moriko teased her wife, the challenges on the sed floor were proceeding pretty much as expected. Traveling in a slightly loosened formation, they progressed slowly and steadily, taking out the creatures they could without wasting energy trying to chase them down. Takehiko spent one more potent spell on a she portal to the top of the cliff where he could cover the group with fox fire and minics as they made their the slow path. Most groups chose this path so as to not bee separated, though there revious team of kitsune delvers that had been well-equipped for scrambling up the cliff.

  Everyone on this team had been through this level before, and everyone khat rushing was a bad idea. One of the early groups had made the mistake to force a clear route through the stactites and stagmites for their heavily armored rades. The resulting explosion from the first time they released and subsequently sparked a small gas cloud had taught them not to try that again, and word had spread. Injuries had been bad enough that when the group's own healers could not ly repair the wounds, and so Mordecai personally mended some scars when the group returned from delving as far as they could.

  The muddy slope was a bit messy, and they spread out into two groups for the raised paths so that they could cover each other. Shizoku and Brongrim were the only ones not invenienced by the tunnel maze; everyone else had to croud move slowly. It shifted every time, so there was no way to memorize the route.

  When the group was ready to face the boss battle, Hildegard and ade their entrances into the arena. The carbuncle pranced dowh from a ledge above and sat down serenely on top of her dias as the path receded. The gleam of her fur and the shine of her forehead gem easily kept attention until Crios erupted from his pool in ahusiastic spray of water and he giant crab quickly scuttled his way to Hildegard's dias, where she lightly lept upon his back, where she could best use her magic to keep him protected and healed as he fought.

  Mordecai kept the fight against Crios and Hildegard a little more iing by starting with two waves of fourteen flying dire rabbats each, then a third wave whewo bosses were looking worn. But even with Takehiko using his mid-tier spells in moderation, he had enough punch behind them to tip the party’s power up signifitly. Moriko retty certain he was holding batil just before the numbers might have overwhelmed someone.

  With Takehiko ag as part of the c a, Shizoku supported Nainvil and Brongrim instead. She used her spells to ter Hildegard’s shielding magic that warded Crios, and she kept the two warriors mobile while throwing a few pre-made alchemical bombs at the crab boss as well. She was trying to be servative with the items they'd collected after the previous boss battle.

  Crios did get in a solid cut rim’s left arm, nearly causing the dwarf to drop his short bde. With a curse, he fell back to Shizoku, who deftly cut the straps holding the damaged pte in painvil shifted between the boss and the pair and focused on defense while Shizoku patched Brongrim up.

  With practiced motions she mixed two vials of powder, then poured the result into the gash before pressing down with a piece of gauze and tightly ing it in pce. Brround his teeth during the fast, rough treatment, but the wound was no longer bleeding, and the quick bandaging was going to let him use his arm without spraying blood everywhere. As the dwarf headed bato battle, Moriko gnce over at Mordecai. “Wouldn’t a healing potion have worked better? I’m pretty certain that they have them.”

  Her husband nodded. “Teically, yes. But they ’t easily brew up a potion down here, so they have a very finite supply. That mixture was something to clot the blood and stimute faster growth. There are even some species of moss whose spores be used to treat wounds that way. Shizoku is a field alchemist, as many witches are, and she knows how to get what she needs out of the surrounding enviro. That’s why they were colleg horns when they could, as well as plug some leaves and flowers from the hedge maze. The pos need preparation, but she be well stocked again after a night of camping. So if it’s not critical, it’s better for her to use that which she repce.”

  Moriko hadn't experieneeding to budget healing potions before. While w for the church, Moriko's missions had always been fully provisioned and usually had a priest or two along as well, so it hadn’t been something she’d o worry about. She wasn’t sure how to take advantage of the difference, but it was something to keep in mind.

  Takehiko was the problem. This fight was keeping him occupied by pure numbers, but those were being whittled down fast and Crios wasn’t going to st much longer despite Hildegard’s healing. Never mind, he was down, and without the support, Hildegard didn’t st much longer. Moriko wi the sight and turned away before the party gathered its prizes, whi this case were going to be harvested from the bodies.

  She khat the inhabitants were fih this oute, and Mordecai was unbothered as well, but she and Kazue were erribly fortable with the treatment of the bodies. True, the souls were kept safe ihe dungeon and they’d be ba the m, but it was still creepy. Maybe it was because of how well she khem.

  With the sed floor cleared, five of the bunkin took off taheir ses of the third floor, while the rest remaio make further notes. Moriko was making her owal ones as she idly twirled fur around her fiakehiko made his party badly imbanced, which made it harder te a fair fight. If she just wao win with a dirty fight, she’d just use a variant of the tactics she’d just witnessed: Mob the party with even stronger creatures, then start w her way through them starting from the bottom up to leave the mage without support, and then take him out.

  The other obvious option was to challeakehiko to a one-on-one and arrange for everyone else to be given appropriate oppos. The only issue was that she wasn’t sure that she was quite up to the task, based on her spars with Mordecai; if Mordecai restricted himself to the sort of fighting style that she used, they were fighting on even footing. Mostly. He still had his ridiculous body to back up his skill. If Mordecai’s evaluation of himself as equivalent to a four-tail by depth of power, then that put her there too. Takehiko was a five-tail, and this was his sed dive into the dungeon. She didn’t know how close he was to being a six-tail.

  Moriko’s musings were interrupted by a mental whimper from Kazue. “P-please, Moriko, that’s too much.” Moriko g her wife’s profile, amused to notice how valiantly the kitsune was struggling to keep her face passive as she supposedly watched the illusion in front of them. There was a faint sheen to her skin as well.

  She showed mercy, of a sort. Smoothing out the tail’s fur, Moriko replied. “I’ll stop, for now. But I thionight you need all your tails groomed, thhly. Why, it might just take hours. But I am certain that Mordecai would be happy to help.”

  “Evil. Cruel. Wicked. Both of you are just awful creatures.” Kazue pi them, yet she didn’t ask them not to either.

  Moriko bit her lower lip to avoid grinning too broadly. She was only willing to embarrass Kazue so mu front of her parents. Besides, the party had started ohird floor. The bunkin here were strohan their dire rabbit cousins, and much more skilled and anized as well. Individually, the members of the party were still the more powerful, but Mordecai set each of the five terrain/bat challeo face against them with ten bunkin, in two groups of five. Now they had to work more for their victory.

  Mordecai set the challenge just right, making them expend spells and some minor potions, as well as reagents from Shizoku’s stash. It would have taken terrible luck for any of the fights to be deadly, especially with the fight being monitored so closely, but only so long as the party worked for it and didn’t take the fights franted.

  Their rewards were more signifit now, from a moary standpoint, as they looted ons that were often cold iron or silvered. There were also some other minic items and ables to be found. Teically, it would have been okay for them to treat the bunkin bodies like they had previous bodies, but there had been far too many iions with the affable small humanoids for anyone in the party to feel fortable doing that, so they kept to simple looting.

  Five battles, ea different terrain; and the terrain variety had increased ohe dungeon had traded for samples from the caravan. Sending in fifty bat-ready bunkin had run the duhin on support. But the bosses, Betty and Umbrowl, were still supplied an additional team of nine more, this time all archers.

  The nine were assigned alcoves at various heights, well spread out throughout the boss room. Three were assigakehiko as their target, and the rest were given a different member of the party. As for Boung Betty, the human-sized bunkin with enhanced boxing skills, she was targeting the five-tail with her long-distance soniches while keeping her distance frrim and Nainvil.

  Takehiko tried to return the favor, but every time he focused to cast a spell at Betty, he found himself under assault from the wily flying owl-cat flitting out of the numerous shadows cast by stagtites and stagmites. And uhe party, Umbrowl knew whies were part of a trap, which let him lure or push toward more dangerous areas. Umbrowl’s instrus were clear: He was to only attack Takehiko whesune was attag Betty, the rest of the time he was to remain hidden.

  All three of the guards switched to crossbows and started exging fire with the snipers, but finding cover and the right ao fire from was plicated by the o watch their footing.

  Despite the difficulties, the party was winning as the snipers went down one by one, but the key point where it was clear they had the battle in the bag was when Shizoku threw a vial at Takehiko’s back just as Umbrowl tried to ambush him again. The vial shattered, and the chemicals released a brilliant but harmless fsh of light that briefly stuhe flying shadow cat. The two kitsune assaulted the smaller boss with foxfire while one of the guards dropped his bow and grabbed his shield to provide cover from Betty’s sonic-powered punches.

  Ohe owl-cat was out of the picture, Takehiko could focus oy, aook full advantage of his knowledge that there ce to rest up ahead. Mordecai recalled her after the first bst of lightning nearly took her out, and the remaining two snipers both retreated with their injuries. Victory beloo the delving party, who fully expected to be rested and healed by m, as they would be able to make use of the rest of the day and night to safely use their remaining magi healing injuries without worry about more battles, and have the time to repair their equipment, restore their supplies, a.

  “Right,” Moriko muttered to herself, “I o remember that they are going to go all out when they reach me. Last fight of the dungeon, no reason to hold back for the future.” Kazue and Mordecai let out sighs and leaned back, looking worn out, and Moriko examihem with . “Is something wrong?”

  Kazue waved her hand at Mordecai, who responded on their behalf. “Pushing them that hard without going overboard was hard. We were stantly running simutions to make sure we didn’t send too many. I want them to at least clear the fifth, and maybe clear the sixth, but I sure as hell don’t want to give it to them either. I had to borrow some of our bunkin from the fourth floor to give us enough. But if I make them work for their fourth and fifth floor clears, then it will feel fair to let them take Kazue’s path iure and switch back to the battle path at the start of the sixth, or even just get them down to the sixth directly if they want. That will make running more parties easier iure.”

  “Maybe clear the sixth? Are you saying you would let them beat up your dear, sweet, delicate wife?” That question earned her a more than dubious look from Mordecai.

  “As if you would have it any other way.” He retorted. “Your thoughts have been leaking, you are sidering devious things. And no, you ’t borrow Eher. I like him where he’s at, and I don’t think ah elemental would be great for a water fight, anyway.”

  “Boo.” Moriko pouted pyfully, then shook her head. “Well, I’m going to go practice a few ideas; I’ll see you two ter.” She gave them both kisses, then bowed briefly to her in-ws, who had also risen to leave. The bunkins had started clearing out as soon as the st battle had finished.

  She had a lot to figure out if she wao give them a challenging fight. Hmm. Maybe she should arrange for something teically a little to for them, and then back off when they cleared the proper challenge level. Moriko trusted her husband and wife, but she did not find the idea of dying, even temporarily, very appealing.

  Zagaroth