Zagaroth

  Bellona followed Mordecai as he expihe yout of the dungeon’s first floor to her, but instead ihrough the sele chamber, he led her to a er of the main chamber that seemed to have an odd bend to it. “This is one of our shortcuts. Only guests with permission see or use them. All the floors are currently busy, but maybe after the evening runs of the bat floors things will die down enough for me to give you a tour.”

  “That reminds me, I saw the schedule, and the time slots were listed strangely, they seemed to reset every twelve hours, with only four slots in each set?”

  Mordeodded, “Yes, one of our ret upgrades allows our inhabitants to respawn twelve hours after dawn. We’ve set up a schedule that ences people to start shortly after dawn and another set twelve hours ter. Our rule is that an area has to be cleared through the boss before the group begin, though only in the early zohe library and beyond are less linear, but there is both a time and an adva requirement for the previous group before the group try. It should be enough to keep people from clumping up, and we've adjusted the rest areas to aodate mroups while still gating who gh. For a determined group who starts at dawn, they camp and be rested by the time the evening group starts, and be well into the library before anyone else reaches that zone.”

  As he spoke, he’d led her through that twisted er and Bellona found herself walking down a corridor that was not attached to the room they’d just left. “This shortcut ects to the space right behind the st boss door. This corridor used to lead directly to the feast hall, but I figured out where to put my sparring arena without making people walk through it.” He gestured to a pair of corridors splitting off from the main path and sloping downward. “Those lead to the arena, while this leads directly above the arena. Though I do reend those wearing skirts be mindful of the room.”

  Bellona jerked to a halt at the edge of the room. The floor was almost invisible, a giant sheet of almost perfect crystal that let a persohe entire arena below them. “Wow, that’s impressive.” It took a moment to mentally adjust and make herself step onto the floor she could barely see. Jumping off a cliff when you are fident you call upon the air to cushion your nding was ohing, trusting your weight to something that looked almost like gss was another. On the arena floor far below the crystal surface were several people sparring in different groups.

  “Thank you. If you want to spar ter, with me or someone else, this is the best pce for it. The arenas outside are for testing newers to the dungeon, I want to keep them free. And this setup should keep observers safe. I’ll show you how to use the entments on the crystal to get a close-up view ter. Now, here’s our feast hall.” The tour tinued on to show her where her rooms were and where the workshops and kit were, as well as the small, currently empty prison. Then he led her to one of the curtained alcoves which covered a door. “And this is our ‘war room’”

  Bellona’s steps faltered a few feet ihe door. On a small couch, there was a five-tailed kitsune woman lounging nguidly across the p of a human monk, while her cousin Kansif was chatting with a nephilim orc of fiendish influehey appeared to be talking about what was going on in an animated illusion. Kansif broke off the versation to walk over with a grin and hugged Bellona tightly. “About time you got here. And now you get to know a couple of minor secrets.” She waved at the couch, “That’s actually Princess Orchid, and that’s Lord Paltira with her,” The kitsune waved and briefly shifted to her human form, shrinking a few inches with a slight alteration of her features that made her more clearly resemble the portraits that Bellona knew. Paltira simply nodded an aowledgment, then resumed brushing the princess’s hair and tails when she shifted back to her kitsune form, “And this is Xarlug, their panion and my rainee.”

  The or raised his hand iing, “Hey. Your cousin has been threatening t you into our training sessions for weeks, be prepared.” Bellona gave a small wave back as she regained her posure.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet all of you.” She’d beeed to bow, but even the princess was behaving in a very rexed and casual manner; it didn’t feel appropriate to the situation.

  “When you are settled in, e back here. This tends to be where we gather since we get to watch the dungeos from here,” At Kansif’s words Bellona took a better look at the pedestal with the illusion on it, and watched as Xarlug maniputed some crystals on the surface to adjust the image to zoom in on a particur group fighting in the mushroom forest.

  Then she jumped slightly as a different short n lit up with an illusion. “Hello Bellona! I’m Kazue!” said the image of the red-haired kitsune, “I talk to you directly whenever you are near one of these. I got tired of not having a body, and this is the best substitute I’ve e up with.”

  “Hello Kazue,” Bellona replied. The situation was beginning to feel a touch surreal with the rapid ges to her expectations and the flood of information to keep up with, “It’s a pleasure to meet you as well,” She’d been saying that a lot today, “I take it this is the end of the tour for now?”

  “Yep!” Kazue said, “Mordecai show you around the zones when it's not busy, and maybe you and Li py ter too. My husband does seem to like using our visitors to eain him.” She cast an amused look over at Princess Orchid.

  “Don’t remihe princess muttered with her eyes closed, “Don’t get me wrong, he’s sweet and naive, but he’s hard to keep up with.”

  Well. That was iing. Bellona filed that uo think about ter’ and asked, “Then, before I settle in, should we go over my duties as an envoy? I want to make sure we are on the same page.” Just because she didn’t care for the political aspects of this job didn’t mean she wouldn’t do her best. Mordecai and Kazue's illusion exged nods, then Mordecai gestured for her to go ahead. “First, unication. I have been given a Traveliary Box with entments that will let me send and receive messages to and from a specific message station at the pace. This won’t be instant unication as the receiving stations are monitored on a watch rotation unless messages are expected from a particur remote location, but the message will get there, and be read in no more than an hour in a worst-case sario. unication with Riverbridge, Azeria, or any of the tribes is still up to you. I am authorized to use it on your behalf for any reasonable unication, even minor things like invitations, but not more frivolous things such as passing casual correspondence.”

  She paused to give them a ce to ask any questions, but they didn’t seem to have any so she tinued on with the part, “As I am sure you guess, a part of my duties is to observe a,” Bellona couldn’t keep from making a face at that, “I called it out as spying on an ally, and was informed that everyone knows that, but I still don’t like it.” She paused as gigglied from the couch.

  “Oh, you poor thing, you are definitely reted to my dear Kansif,” Orchid said as she slid from Paltira’s p, transitioning from i lounging to delicate grace as she glided across the floor to embrace Bellona warmly. “It is okay. They will uand that you are doing your duty. And if it makes you feel better, they somehow have an inside lio the kingdom,” Orchid pulled away from Bellona with a smile, then turned her gaze to Mordecai. The princess’s body nguage shifted again as she walked towards him, a slight sway of her hips causiails to swish softly.

  “I don’t know more than that, but they weren’t surprised enough at some information I gave them. If I thought it would work, I’d try and seduce it out of one of them,” Her voice had gone low and sultry, “Unfortunately, I think this one could keep his secrets even if he weren’t already faithfully bound,” As she spoke Orchid paced a slow circle around Mordecai, raising a hand to lightly run a nail over his arms and back. “Now, if I had an unwed Kazue in my hands,” she cast a half-lidded gaze toward the illusion, “that would have been a different matter,” She shook her head and it was like a mask fell off as Orchid walked back to the couch where Paltira was waiting for her, his expression perfectly ral. “Mm, now for even that bit of teasing I’ve got a price to pay ter tonight, don’t I love?” She said, sliding into his p to kiss him, holding the kiss for a long moment as his arms ed arouightly.

  When their kiss broke, Orchid looked back over to Bellona, “I would like you to hat the only people surprised here are you and Kazue.” The red-headed kitsune’s illusion was in fact blushing intensely. “While I did find an excuse to not feel obliged to take on such missions anymore, I have been quite thhly trained. I was only so btant just now as a demonstration, and to take advantage of the ability to do so with sincere allies. We all have different talents. You ’t help being fht and ho, and even as allies knowing that this is the intended effect, they will be slightly less guarded around you, which means you may see something I would not get to see. This is the game, and everyone must py to win, even when helping others. Winning, in this case, simply means a nation proteg itself, so there is a valid need for us to know how this smaller political entity got a secret source of information. But they are also trusted allies because of Kazue and Moriko, so I afford to be ho like this.”

  She smiled impishly, “Of course, this also buys me credibility by exposing at least part of my hand. Mordecai knows it too, and there we get into the infinite loop of eaowing that the other knows. I admit that I really like getting to not py that game here, that I don’t have to pretend to not know wheh know that I do. So go on Bellona, be ho about who you are and what your duties are, they won’t be offended.”

  Bellona had been too stunned by the princess’s as to respond, and only now was she able to shake it off enough to take in the rest of the room. Kansif looked somewhere between amused and mencholy, Kazue was as shocked as Bellona was, Xarlug looked … well, she wasn’t sure, but definitely not surprised, and Mordecai looked gently sympathetic. “She is right, though I wasn’t expeg her to put on that show. You’ve been dragged into politid diplomacy. But it will be easier to have someone who isn’t pying overly plicated games. Orchid’s doing her best to rex, but I suspect the games e as a habit by now.”

  The princess fluttered her eyeshes with overly dramatioce. “I know not of what thou speaketh.”

  Bellona sighed, “I’m still not sure I uand, but maybe that’s part of the point. But back to reviewing what my duties are. I am to help defend the dungeon, though I have been advised there is a signifit advao being a tractor and that I should sider trying to bee one for you, but I am ed about a flict of is...”

  Zagaroth