The kobolds decided to spend a couple of days getting to know the dungeon as it was now, and the their findings back to the rest of the tribe. Mordecai had faded far into legend for them, but there was still a sort of faith that he would return. Now the question was if any of them wao join what amouo their aral home.

  Mordecai’s feelings on the idea were mixed. While he would wele any who were sincere in wanting to joiook the time to emphasize that being an inhabitant was an incredible itment. Unlike being a tractor, which was about oaths and promises, a se who became an inhabitant was agreeing to have their self altered, and were willingly submitting to magic that would reato their brains and fe high levels of loyalty. It was ohing to offer an evolution to a noient creature that would lead to it being a loyal se, but Mordecai was more dubious about asking a creature to give up existing free will. He wouldn’t deny them if they were sincere enough, but he was going to at least mildly disce them.

  The kobold’s stay proved to be well-timed as well. Kazue and Mordecai had spent some time discussing their pns with Moriko after she had told them about the enter with Captain Ain Vitomir, and the group arrived during the kobolds’ visit. Having some of their kobold guests simply be in a taverhe soldiers entered was a good personality test, as kobolds, goblins, orcs, and simir species were often the most discriminated against by the ‘civilized races’. There was some historical justification, but any people capable of f a reasonably stable society were capable of peaceful retions with others (with very rare and plicated exceptions). And he’d seen enough to know well that humans, elves, and all the rest were just as capable of brutality. The only real difference was how self-domesticated the average popuce was.

  The overall results were promising: The captain’s step barely altered when he spotted the kobolds, aher casually spped the back of a soldier’s head who had started to draw a sword. The rest had put their hands on pommels or other ons, and looked rather abashed as they took their hands back off. Ain took in the rest of the pce pretty quickly, and theo the bar to order a round of drinks for everyone, on him. It was a sort of i apology without having to explicitly call out his own people in public.

  That did, however, mark two of them as somewhat rash, if in different ways, as Moriko’s description did not match the one who’d started to draw his bde. With the group having arrived te in the day, Mordecai simply took the evening to examine all the magical auras he could, and was satisfied that he could find nothing that resembled the sg tokens from before, or any simir divination magic.

  The m, the soldiers found themselves fag a slightly differe. Before they were allowed into the official entrance of the dungeon, they all had to undergo evaluation. Well, except for the captain of course. Kuni evaluated the four martial soldiers with a simple spar using wooden ons, while Seon had the priestess and the wizard demonstrate their magical prowess, first against stationary targets, and then against uargets. The official purpose was “To make sure everyone is petent enough to not get themselves immediately killed.” while unofficially it was a time and effort-ing activity roughly equivalent to proving themselves against a normal first-floor boss fight.

  When the soldiers finally advao the entrance hall, Captain Vitomir called out a greeting to the dungeon, then headed directly to the s table while pulling out two bottles. “We e bearing some treats that I hope you will find suitable to offer to some of your other visitors. First, we have apple ie, with this particur batch being a family blend of winter-apple cider and fresh apple cider that is frozen during the winter before being fermented.” He pced the first bottle oable before tinuing, “And this is kissel, a sweet dessert drink made from berries and dried fruit.”

  Mordecai masked his amusement from Kazue, who whi him about the inability to actually taste the drinks, despite *knowing* what they taste like from the analysis, and took some time to sympathize before he maed his avatar down the hallway to one of the shrines and walked out. Most people preferred that sort of entrance if they weren’t used to dungeons. Or even if they were. “We thank you for yifts,” he said as the two bottles disappeared. “And wele to the Azeria Mountain Dungeon. I am Mordecai. As you have not e with one of the groups familiar with our rules, do you have any questions?” This had bee a routiely, and one which Kazue inteo automate with her illusion ptform. But they weren’t going to test that right now, because that would give the game away. All depis of Kazue and Moriko had either been hidden or masked with illusions shortly after this group had arrived.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Mordecai, I am Ain,” the captain said and then gnced over the pque on the wall. “This appears to be the same as I was told to expect, so I don’t think so. Mind, this is our first visit to a dungeon, so I did my best to look up etiquette and drill it through the thick skulls of this lot, so I hope you’ll five any missteps.”

  He smiled at Ain in response. “I think that everything will be fine. I am a pretty reasonable person.”

  “So you are saying I am not?” Kazue said a bit testily into his mind.

  “You’re just upset about not being able to taste the drinks still,” Mordecai replied, not giving in to her provocation, then out loud tinued, “Though I will note ohing we do not have written down, to avoid tention over exact w. You are not vouched for, and e well armed. If you wish to try the gentler path, I am going to have to insist that you give up your arms temporarily.”

  Ain chuckled. “That makes sense, but you don’t have to worry about that. I want to push my people and see how good they really are. We’ll be taking your bat challehank you.”

  “Excellent, I look forward to seeing how you fare. Oh, and as an added iive, if you clear the bottom floor, I have a treat of my own you might enjoy. Some friends celebrated their wedding here, and the groom made sure t a gift that could be shared with the party guests,” Mordecai held up ay metal bottle with traces of gold around the open rim, “Are you familiar with this maker’s mark?”

  Captain Vitomir narrowed his eyes as he exami closely, then looked back up at Mordecai. “Is that- it is, isn’t it?” He turowards the six people waiting for them. “Alright you sorry lot, I will haul your corpses through the st floor if I have to, you are not allowed to keep me from getting my first taste of GOME.” Mordecai rather ehe awful a and wondered if it was on in the north. He didn’t think that most dwarves would appreciate the name being shortehat way.

  The soldiers followed along with wide eyes as Aihem into the sele circle, and then jabbed the bat path button as soon as everyone was ihe stone doors started moving, but much slower than normal, slow enough to give Mordecai time to speak as the illusions over the murals were dispelled. “Oh, and Captain Vitomir,” the man spun ih a suspicious look, as he hadn’t given his full name, “My wives wao pass on their greetings.” The captain only took a beat more to start ughing loudly, while one of the martial soldiers started looking panicked. Mordecai waved briefly with his left hand, making sure that light glio show off the purple and gold crystal before the doors sealed.

  Mordecai and Kazue watched as Ain cajoled his subordio moving on to the rest of the dungeon. The good captain was quite correct, if they were pnning on killing the soldiers, Mordecai wouldn’t have given this sort of warning. But the three of them had agreed that the man who had harassed Kazue and Moriko deserved a little bit of torment.

  While Mordecai didn’t adjust the difficulty of the dungeon, he did pay more attention than he did to most groups. Ohey got started, they formed up into groups of three, two soldiers with short spear and shield out and a caster in each group, with Captain Vitomir mostly ag as a training instructor. The two groups acted semi-indepely but covered for each other, enabling them to eagage an enemy without further unication or ce of fusion while still providing backup if the roup .

  Vitomir didn’t get directly involved in any fights until the third-flht with Betty. The default was to only have one boss in a fight, so Umbrowl was still in reserves for possibly fag future parties. He engaged with Betty while the teams took out her support, then pulled back to let them figure out how to cope with the skirmishing boxer with sonic-powered punches. And there were still traps to pay attention to as well. They took a little bit of a beating in that fight, though they proved quite capable of patg each other up to minimize the amount of magic that the priestess had to use.

  It was still early afternoohey reached the rest area on the fourth floor, but Ain told them to make camp. One of the pieces of advice Moriko had passed on was to always take provided rest spots, and they had wearied themselves in the fights on the floor above.

  The day the party moved on to tag the library maze. They adjusted their tactics slightly, with the two groups trying to pincer an enemy wherever possible, and Ain started getting more involved with the actual fighting even before they faced Biblios. And the maze was made slightly harder by the presence of a few ‘helpful’ faeries. The rule on the pque that the captain had read over on the first floor was, “Do NOT attack the faeries. They think they are helping, and sometimes they actually are. They do not present a threat unless provoked.”

  Of course, ‘threat’ was very different from ‘distra’ or ‘annoying’, but there wasn’t much Mordecai could or would do about it at this point. Plus, learning what to filter and what not to filter was good for training situational awareness.

  Captain Vitomir led the fight when it came time to face Biblios, and started showing his true capabilities. His boots let him air-walk for short bursts, and his mastery of martial prowess let him strike hard enough to force Biblios to briefly nd, letting the others engage directly when not dealing with the spawning bookwyrms and biting words.

  While not as formal or stylized as the sort of training Monks received, any suffitly tempered warrior or soldier found themselves moving into simir capabilities. Biblios hadn’t been forced to nd just because of the physical force of the blow, but because of the will and i p the strike. The energy that respoo ones spirit and mind flowed everywhere in the world, and strong wills always gathered more of it even if they had no direct training in how to do it.

  When the party finally camped on the fifth floor, they were looking a bit wrung out. After the setup was done and the food started cooking, Ain looked over what he could see of the fifth floor thoughtfully, then called out, “Mordecai, we talk for a little bit?”

  Mordecai strolled out from behind a mushroom tree, his hands csped behind his bad wearing a politely curious expression. “How I help you, Captain?”

  Zagaroth