It had been a long day of walking and when they settled into camp for the night Kazue was quite foot sore. She barely had the energy to bother with driving the arm-spike into the ground and eling the energy to activate it. It was a fairly simple ented device that registered who resent in an area and gave off an arm if it detected a new signifit presen that area. This close to the forest they were uo have issues but this trip was a dry run to get used to doing stuff like this befoing anywhere more dangerous.

  Just that little bit of effort made Kazue feel unsteady on her feet and she sat down with a thump. The fact that Moriko could cover twice this distan half the time or less on her own amazed the tired kitsuhankfully her rather amused wife was happy to pamper her with foot massages and a simple cooked dinner before treating Kazue to less tender but just as loving attention.

  Iermath, Kazue y on their bedrolls in a light daze, staring up at the moons in the sky as her mind drifted. She could see the flickering light of the campfire mingling with starlight and moonlight on the nearby trees, and hear Moriko moving about the little campsite as she ed up their gear and food and bahe fire.

  She could also hear the rustling of the wind in the leaves and brahe songs of night birds, the sounds of is flying, and distant animals moving through the woods. For all that she’d oftehe night outside to enjoy the beauty of the moon and stars, Kazue had never been so far away from civilization. At least, if one didn’t include the early days of her existence as a dungeon.

  And she’d never felt so in tuh the pulse of the wilds. It was dangerous and ever-ging in one view, but even that ever-ging cycle of existence was simply true to its nature. Not uhe mercurial, primal goddess of the night and moon. For all the moods and aspeericume that had been dispyed during the brief visit of her avatar, all of them were a part of her.

  The same could be said about Kazue in some ways. Her mind flitted, sometimes she seemed almost childish, and other times she could be pletely in trol. The kitsune was simply fluid in how her mood and thoughts shifted, and that was fine. Because it was true to herself. Kazue felt like she’d reached a small epiphany about nature in general and her own nature, and smiled as she felt Moriko slide uhe light b with her to snuggle before they both drifted off to sleep.

  Moriko awoke first of course, and Kazue awoke to the smell of cooki. “Mmm, yum.” She murmured with a purr as she opened her eyes. “What a tasty thing to wake up to.” Kazue grinned as she eyed Moriko’s ck of clothing, and the half-elf smirked back.

  “Get up zy boime to eat breakfast. You don’t get any more dessert until tonight.”

  They flirted through breakfast, and then Moriko passed on a ‘letter’ from Mordecai, with a small addition from Kazue’s core. It was going to be weird for a while to be sending messages to her other self, but then, Kazue’s life was simply weird. A little more weirdness just made sense.

  After breakfast, Kazue went through her m rituals aation to settle her mind and tuhe flow of her magic. As she did so, there was a little extra ‘hum’ in her mind, and a flickering awareness of ahereal presence, but it didn’t feel like an intrusion. Nor quite an invitation. Just, a sense of something more. And it felt reted to her thoughts st night. She decided to think about it more rather than talk about it just yet, as she didn’t know how to describe it without it possibly sounding w.

  It took most of the rest of the day to reach Riverbridge, and Kazue simply hurt all over by then. While she’d tio practice her brand of magic through most of the m, by the time lunch rolled around she’d been too tired to keep it up, her muscles pining from a sed day of ‘hard’ use. With the suing low and Kazue practically limping, Moriko ended up giving her a piggyback ride the st stretch, with the backpack shifted to Kazue’s back.

  “e on, I’ll take you straight home. We check out the inn for a private room tomorrow,” she said, and Kazue simply nodded limply. It was absolutely unfair that Moriko still had all this energy.

  Kazue also suspected this art of why Mordecai had suggested this particur route. They were going to be here for a bit, and that would be time to heal before she set out for another long walk. And then a long stop at the , more resting, and then on to the capital. She’d simply seen it as a casually paced tour of the kingdom from the way he prese, but now she also saw it as him being sneaky about making sure she got suffit rest as she toughened up. Taking care of her without pointing out that she o be taken care of. It was somewhere between endearing and annoying. Mostly endearing. It might be more annoying if the man wasn’t right most of the time.

  Really, her annoyance was mostly at the fact that she o be taken care of at all. She was soft in more ways than one. And while some of that softness ut to good use eaining both her husband and her wife, Kazue was starting to feel a other aspects of it. Hmm, if she mastered her shape-ging, could she slim down her excess when on the road, and enjoy the curves when she could rex? That sounded nice.

  Her mind tio drift on random thoughts for a little bit until Moriko set her down. “What?” She started to ask, then realized they were in front of the gate guards. Kazue blushed. “Oh, er, hello.” She just now realized that she’d heard them talking, it just hadn’t registered. “Um, I’m Kazue, Moriko’s wife.” She retty certain that she’d heard them talking about who she was.

  The guards still looked skeptical. “As in the dungeon everyone’s been talking about? Moriko, are y to pull something over on us?”

  Moriko shook her head aured to Kazue to expihanks. Well, she did have a better uanding of the whole avatar thing. “Well, more exactly, I’m Kazue’s ied avatar, but I’m still me. Just, sort of aension of me. Or my other self. Look, it’s plicated, but if you want verification, you ask Traxalim. He met me before and this avatar looks the same as my inal avatar because they are both based on my body before I was reinated. And he probably knows a lot about dungeons anyway.” Though she certainly wasn’t going to expin why. “Just, please don’t take long. My feet hurt from two days of walking.”

  Kazue gave them her best ‘pity me’ look, and it did seem to have some effect. After they sulted for a moment, one of the guards said. “Alright, we’ll record your name as you’ve given it, but we’re going to send a o the high priest as well as note more details in the log.” Kazue nodded her thanks and walked limply after Moriko ohe guards waved them on by.

  She also preteo not hear one of the guards muttering about uanding what might have made Moriko settle down. It was fttering, but it also made Kazue blush in embarrassment.

  “e on love, this way,” Moriko said, drawing Kazue to her side to help support her. The gardeween the house and the shop was lovely, and the st invigorating. There was so much about a healthy garden that felt simir to a healthy forest, but the touch of order and care also made it very different. Too much order, taking away too much of what made up the web of life, would make the garden less healthy, but Moriko’s parents tehe garden with just the right level of taming to keep the pnts they wanted healthy without ripping out everything that might be a ‘weed’. She loved it, and she could only imagine how much her mother had loved it when she visited.

  The only thier than the st of the garden was the st of food ing out of the house, and Kazue's pace picked up as she ignored Moriko’s snickering.

  Mordecai smiled to himself as Moriko updated him and Kazue about the wele she and Kazue’s avatar received. It was o hear everything was going so well.

  “Oh, but I’m jealous. That sounds so good. I want to be able to eat again. And have sex. And at right this moment, I am not sure which I want more.” Kazue whined while Mordecai tinued his current work.

  “I’d like to promise that you’ll get used to it, but I started off as a core so my base existence didn’t include those things.” On the workben front of him were all the tools he needed for jewelry and gem work, as well as several items not needed for mundane craft, such as mana-infused oils and engraving tools inscribed with ruhat let them el magic better. The terpiece of all this was a ring that he was slowly assembling out of yers as each piece roperly prepared.

  “I kind of want to have you be sexy for me, but I think that might just frustrate me that I ’t touch you,” she sighed. “Well, what are you w on, since we ’t build deeper right now?”

  “One of my favorite ented rings, and one probably still popur for a lot of spellcasters. It lets you shift certain types of physical spells partially into the shadow realm, which make it easier to bypass a target’s defenses. It does require being able to analyze your target to make the decision, but it’s usually a safe bet against heavily armored foes.” He wao have one ready for both Kazue and Moriko by the time they came by the dungeon again, and even with anticipated future visits.

  This was one of the reasons he was always happy to trade a reasonable amount. Receiving real goods in exge for mana-fed goods allowed him to turn those materials into specialized items, given enough time and effort. For example, he’d had to carefully cut a small gem into a very specific shape before carving els and runes into it, and that gem was currently soaking in one of the infused oils while he shaped the segment of the ring.

  “We also give this out as prizes for our ‘sixth’ floor boss fight.” Rather than renaming each floor, they sidered their op floor their ‘floor zero’ area. Though it wasn’t going to be a problem for a while, until the rabbit popution produced enough dire rabbits to let more dire rabbits bee bunkin, or bee rabbats to let other rabbats bee rabkin, they simply couldn’t grow again even if they had enough mana. They’d been pushing it before by shuffling ganthros around, but they could both tell that they o fill everything out and tweak all the floors before they could advance again.

  Mordecai’s side of things was self-adjusting as the increased floor ‘depth’ helped the inhabitants to bee stronger. Kazue was trying to fiune some time limits on her challenges where they couldn’t be reasonably tweaked to simply be stronger. Of course, until they had some new delvers to challehem, they couldn’t know for sure. Mordecai expected some of those soon enough, people would generally want to wind down from their holiday before pulling together an expedition. They’d simply been preparing from well before the solstid only two people had been leaving for the journey.

  “I think I am learning a bit about how to put this together by watg you, but I ’t do this myself without my avatar, I?”

  “I’m afraid not love. That is why I taught you the basics so early, this way your other self practice when she has some downtime, but some of our bunkin and rabkin have picked up the skills needed and are w their .” He was reserving the most expensive pos for himself as he hem for products like this ring, but outside of what he needed for his projects all of their inhabitants were free to practid learn with whatever materials they had. Which also gave them more potential loot.

  And if there were a few mistakes that led to cursed items, well, nothing said he couldn’t hand those out in addition to normal loot. Some cursed items could eveuro beneficial use with a bit of creativity. Most curses were simply a malfun of magistead of deliberate malefice.

  Zagaroth