Mordecai kept his ral-friendly expression as Captain Ain Vitomir eyed him suspiciously. “You souly like some of my senior officers.”

  Now Mordecai allowed himself to rex and crack a more sincere smile. “I may have pyed that role a time or three in the past.”

  “Hm, for a supposedly young dungeon, you seem to have quite a bit of experiehe statement came with an implied question, and Mordecai decided to give a partial answer.

  “It’s plicated, but sider me to be an older man who has moved into a younger woman’s house,” Mordecai said with a grin, “And brought another woman with me. It doesn’t really cover the situation, but it does give it a rough outline.”

  “Hah, and thewo women run off together to leave you sitting the house?” Ain replied with a ugh.

  “Yes and no, as Kazue is also here.” Mordecai gestured around the dungeon. “Avatar and Core are tects of one being. So she’s listening in right now, and i as well, if a bit less directly. Hmm, she retly came up with these animated illusion ptforms, maybe she could install them at the campsites. I know she has a couple iown on the level.”

  “Town?” Ain shook his head. “Well, that answers part of what I wao ask. I have no iion of actually dragging anyone’s body. But some of my people are reag their limits in bat alone, and the terrain’s beeing more plicated at the same time as your creatures have beeing stronger. I’m trying to decide if it’s time to tap out or not.”

  Mordecai looked up and tilted his head in thought. “I’ve got an offer, depending on how much free time you have.” He looked back down with a smile. “You’ve proven to be a reliable instructor. But I bet your soldiers have less experien training others. And the process of going back to basics to train others has proven to often be beneficial.” He shrugged. “We’ve grown fairly fast, and I only have so much time to give direct training. Unless it goes against Trionean policy or orders, I hire your party for a duration to train the inhabitants on this floor. In addition to any direct pay we agree on, I offer a free pass on the rest of the floor, and when the tract duration is up, you get to start off fresh and ready to tackle the boss fight.”

  He paused and held up a finger in thought for a moment before tinuing. “Speaking of tracts, we have the capacity to make all of you actual tractors for the duration, which would let you also train dangerously, and Kazue has agreed to the idea as well. tractet most of the bes of inhabitants, most importantly getting the daily respawn, but don’t have the stri loyalty requirements. tractors simply have to not be hostile to the dungeon in thought or deed.” In fact, with the bined pools of having two cores they could have up to thirteen tractors, so twelve others plus Moriko.

  Ain sidered the offer in silence for a little bit, then narrowed his eyes a little. “The bit about tractors having to be not hostile, that’s a test of sorts isn’t it? Does this have something to do with what your wife Kazue said about someorying to hurt her?”

  That made Mordecai chuckle. “That is a bonus effect, ahere is a retion to that event. I’m holy pretty certain that you have no direct retionship with that group, but there is no reason to not throw a little extra precaution that way. If anyone held any hostile or antagonistic thoughts or feelings toward us, the tract would simply fail to attach.” There were occasionally some deranged people who could actually fake their ast the initial traing, but those individuals were extremely broken souls and the tract always broke the moment they decided that they were going to take a hostile a.

  The captain pursed his lips thoughtfully. “You know, when you are an officer in the army, you have lots of opportuo hear people talk about crazy ideas and crazier stories. Some of those ideas might seem particurly crazy to a man whose family has had particurly beautiful but mysterious women marry into it, women with an affinity for the forests or river he orchard. At least, acc to old family legends. Of course, if you call someone an idiot for holding a particurly stupid belief, people who agree with him generally don’t care for you much,” He shrugged, “But anyway, I don’t think you’ll find any hostility amongst my people. They still might be worried about the tract idea though.”

  Mordecai’s core did a deeper analysis of the microscopic bits that had bee in the dungeon from Ain’s passage, and quickly found what he was looking for. A few traces of fey, possibly some type of nymph, and given the region Ain was from, that would probably mean those traces came from a vi. Iing.

  “The problem with crazy ideas and stories passed down over a long time is that they iably accumute ges and drop details. It takes a lot of meticulous effort to keep records straight for millennia.” Mordecai shrugged. “Perhaps we talk about that sort of philosophy at aime, if you feel free to indulge in that sort of long versation.” They’d talked around the topic closely enough for Mordecai’s satisfa. “Why don’t we iate a tract offer for just the training, and a small bonus for those who elect to bee full tractors for the duration. The main be of being a tractor is the ability to train harder, but it does e with the obligation to defend the dungeon from anyone who would seriously attack it.”

  While they iated, Orchid was going over the information that Kazue assing along, while snuggled on a small couch with Paltira. Xarlug and Kansif were off sparring with river floor bosses, dug some training of their own to keep themselves eained. “I almost guarahat they were ordered to take leave for this trip. We aren’t on good enough terms for a Trionean military group to be approved long-term leave into Kuic allied territory like this without cause, unless our captain here has some very big strings to pull on. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is anroup or two on their way, it’s what I would do. And possibly go myself, but I am a field agent.” She shrugged. “I agree with your husband, Captain Vitomir has likely bee in blind to just get a surface-level read. It’s a good method to get a different point of view without preceptions.” The princess gave an impish grin and dismissed her fox ears and tails, returning to her inal form, being a petite beauty with long dark hair, curled up in Paltira’s p. “Though part of me is tempted to meet him as myself, see how he reacts to personally meeting fn royalty.”

  Kazue’s illusion shook her head with amusement. “I didn’t know the refined princess I admired so had su evil sense of humor.”

  “Part of the training,” Orchid replied. “I always o py that role in public, but your wife and I could exge stories about our youthful escapades.” She turned a little and drew Paltira down for a kiss, then smiled softly when they broke apart. “This is better, though it took me a while to aowledge it deeply enough to ge certain things in my life.” She shook her head, and looked back to the ptform holding Kazue’s avatar. “But that is a story for aime. How go the iations?”

  The iations had gone fairly smoothly. Small, thin rods of gold in exge for the training, created by dungeon mana. One rod per person per full day of training given. The iation for being tractors was a little more detailed, as tractors could not be pensated with dungeoed loot. Fortunately, the weeks of trading had left the dungeon with an overflow of goods, even with the amount that had been ed by the pnar iations.

  When they were done, Mordecai left the captain to talk with his people. The wizard and the priestess were the quickest to agree to the full tract, while the st was the soldier who had harassed Kazue and Moriko. It took the captain a bit of time to reassure the man that the dungeon wasn’t holding a grudge. Which was mostly true even, at least in regard to a temporary tract. Mordecai wouldn’t have invited someoh that sort of judgment to be a perma tractor.

  The day, Mordecai formalized everything, and the training ehe party was met by scouts from both of the ‘warring’ fas, and the first day ent familiarizing themselves with the floor and the inhabitants. They agreed to spend two weeks iraining, which backed Orchid’s opinion that the soldiers were sent to gather information as that proloheir leave time signifitly. If any other parties made it to the third floor, training would be modified as o aodate them.

  Not that two weeks was going to be enough for deep training, but it would give the mushroom forest inhabitants more dedicated training during that time than Mordecai could possibly provide, and the rest of their guests were more warriors than soldiers. Tactid methodology varied greatly between those two groups, warriors were good for training most of the floor bosses, but not as good for training anized groups. And the inhabitants were well motivated to tinue any training regimens they learned during that time.

  Zagaroth