Moriko was amused at how long it had takeo actually get to the . Between Kazue wanting to camp out every time she found a ype of spirit to try and uh and Moriko’s own time spent looking for people who might need a guiding hand to figure out their heart’s desire or how to obtain it, what should have been a five-day journey had taken nearly a month.

  On the plus side, Kazue had gotten down how to uh spirits and how to cast more magic by temporarily binding with one, and had started making a list of what sort of magic eae had. It took an hour to bind with a spirit when she was well rested, so if she wao use particur spells she had to select irit to uh and bind carefully.

  It turns out there are a lot of different minor spirits. There were spirits of fes and fires, spirits of cultivated nds that were different from open pins which were different from forests, creeks held different spirits from kes, and the rod deep earth held spirits of its own that Kazue had retly learo call upon.

  Moriko was gd that they’d mostly gotten through all of that, it had left her with very little to do some days. She’d been able to help Kazue with some of her meditation teiques, but Kazue had been practig those for a while so there had not been muoriko to add.

  But now they were here, and the experience left Moriko a little bemused. She’d never had reason to visit before, and now she uood why kitsune just referred to the d never used ‘town’ or ‘city’, because those sorts of words didn’t really fit what she saw.

  First, there was no clear border between where people lived and where they didn’t, homes were just denser he ter.

  Sed, homes and buildings could be difficult to identify, the kitsune druids had spent geions izing homes to different people’s preferences. Some were led in the roots of giant trees, others were built along the branches, rown directly into a trunk, or were little cottages that blended with hedges and small trees. And acc to Kazue, there were even a few that had burrow-like entrances for fox-form kitsuo dive into, which then led inte, fortable underground homes, though she hadn’t been able to visit those ones before.

  The once-again three-tailed fox had beeed about the possibility of visiting some friends that way before she realized that Moriko wouldn’t be able to join her. “It’s okay for you to visit friends, my love. You don’t have to ese the eime, I stay out of trouble well enough,” Moriko smirked, “Now that I have reason enough to want to stay out of trouble that is.”

  “You’re incible,” Kazue giggled, then snuggled close, “e on, Mother said that she kept the house after she handed over the garde’s go check it out, I have a key.” If they had gotten here faster, they might have caught up with her parents, but this did have the advantage of giving them more privacy.

  Kazue’s home turned out to be of the hidden ‘cottage’ design, with two floors above ground and a finished basement f herbs and cold ste below ground. And while the garden had been altered with new hedge growth, Akahana had kept a small bit of yard for herself where she’d left some cooking herbs that would grow ‘wild’ just fine on their own.

  The cottage demonstrated an iing diy isune lifestyle. On the one hand, they were so into having their homes ied into nature that the entire house was made of very tightly interwoven bushes, vines, and trees, all growing and living in harmony while still providing all the structural iy of a normal wooden house, if not more.

  Oher hand, their vulpiure meant that they were generally as happy to be spoiled with luxury as any cat. Thanks to Akahana’s entments, running hot, cool, and cold water was avaible on demand, and the entire pce erfectly climate-trolled and had anti-pest wards, as it seems even druids prefer to have their grains be i-free. The stove didn’t burn any fuel at all, it had heating runes on the cooking surfad the oven had temperature trols that could go low enough to barely keep something warm or hot enough that Moriko suspected that one could do white smithing with it.

  Heck, the bed sheets were made of silk. “And here I thought Riverbridge was well off. We still use wood for fire a our water with pipes running by the stove.”

  Kazue shook her head, “I never really thought about it. I didn’t even realize that my mother probably did most of the enting herself, cause the druids do that work for anyone who needs it. And all the work was done while I was still a baby.”

  “Well, nothing for it now. But now that we are here? Do you want to show me all the sights? Or maybe we should find out how well your bed handles having two people?” Moriko waggled her eyebrows as Kazue ughed and swatted her butt with a tail.

  “Bad wifey! We o get ed up and head over to the Matriarch’s home. If we don’t, I am fairly certain that by su we’ll be informed of the feast being thrown in our honor. Might as well prep for it.”

  Moriko did as her wife bade her to do, satisfied with having teased Kazue, though she did io make good on the idea ter. And Kazue proved mildly prophetic here, as they were indeed expected at the pavilion that covered the small clearing in front of the Matriarch’s home. The ‘house’ itself was almost more like a small keep woven in and throughout a giant tree that towered above all the others nearby.

  The party itself was unusual to Moriko’s experience. While the basics of the long tables covered in food and such were familiar, she found it a little strahat most of the guests came a as suited them over the course of the evening, and a good quarter of them brought their own dishes to share and show off. Only a handful of people were obligated to stay for most of the feasting: Herself, Kazue, Aia, and a handful of other kitsune in leadership positions.

  While Moriko and Avatar Kazue were settling into a visit at the Azeria , Mordecai was w with Kazue Core onds zohey split it in half using a tangle of trees and s vines, including plenty of mildly toxits with a variety of fast irritants. Then they crafted a floor-specifitle for the faeries: Any fairy that traveled through this floor had a ce of glowing for a random time of up to three hours. Cheap will-o-the-wisps that wouldn’t be trying to lure adveo their doom.

  There were no dires for the fairies, of course, the flighty creatures didn’t hem to be effective in this role. Just them being their normal helpful selves should suffice. They were just enced to help any visitors they met.

  Overall, the basic appearand fun of both sides were the same: Twisty paths, heavy fog and mist, slowly drifting patches of trees and shifting areas of solid to deceptive nd, all the things o make navigating it difficult. And Mordecai showed Kazue a rick as well. They’d already gotten lodestones as a sample, and Mordecai already knew how to manipute their properties. The entire zone was covered in twisted magic fields, with each of the shifting ‘isnds’ of trees carrying enough lodestoo bend the fields near it some more. passes would be of no use here.

  Ohey had dohat, Mordecai could set about making his bat challehe feathered serpents migrated in quite easily of course, though they were rger now and teo rest by twining themselves around the top of trees instead of making a he ceiling. He made sure they were a little faster as well, and gave them the ability to spit their poison at range, plus he empowered their echolocation, giving them the ability to unleash a botling, ing sonic scream in a e before them.

  The river drakes needed more modification. For ohing, he o have els of water avaible deep below the surface of the wetnds for them to travel through, as the above-ground waters were often too shallow, and then they he ability to cope with the increased levels of salt and mud as well as be able to seheir targets without a clear line of sight. He decided to give them the ability to seric fields as well as sharpening their sense of smell. Mm, they were almost the right amount of dangerous, but he felt he could push a little more. Let’s see, ah, yes, if he put it on a slow recharge, and he could give them a powerful electric bst, and in the process give them resistao electricity. Perfect.

  Now, for the new inhabitants. First up, the squirrels. He was amused when Moriko reported back Kazue’s ent about them being evil, as he’d already had this lot pnned. It was a fairly straightforward modification; he made them charcoal gray, gave them the same shadow blending and shadow jumping abilities as Umbrowl, and then added the ability to fling bolts of void energy with a flick of their tails. As a backup, Mordecai also hardeheir teeth and strengtheheir bites, but it would never be their primary attack. The tiny little snipers didn’t really need more than that with their ability to scamper up trees and leap between branches. And naturally, they were called shade tails.

  Kazue had to browse through their older books and cross referen old nguage to get that one, and she promptly booed him.

  up, Mordecai wao work on some crustas. The base design was not terribly different from Crios, but they were mud colored instead of being crystal-blue and they were only a little bigger than human-sized. He also had them grow another set of legs behind the others that had some increased articution on a ‘forward’ orientation. These legs tucked up out of the way when the crab-like creatures were moving normally, but they could hit the ground quickly for a quick jump forward, or be used for the creature to rear ba and bee bipedal. Naturally, these legs required proper feet to maintain bance, and some internal structural modification, including improved muscuture and some limited internal skeletal support in addition to the exoskeleton.

  The improved muscles and the overall shape of the rear legs gave him some more ideas, and he made sure to give them the ability to jump both high and far in this stahe small legs simply folded across the torso to provide a little more prote, while the powerful arms were enhanced with some hydraulic segmentation, giving it further reach than its size would suggest. bined with a bit of innate power, this gave their punches a shock wave as well, which both enhaheir normal attacks and ehem to perform air punches.

  With traore mammalian-like muscles where needed, a faster metabolism, and the ability to leap far and high, it was time to mat to fun. He modified the exoskeleton on its head, making it grow out into the facsimile of a rabbit’s face, and took the opportunity to grow out the normal pair of anteo several ‘whiskers’, and made the rabbit ears still act as sound fuo ses of modified setae, effectively giving them mammal-like hearing as well.

  Of course, the face was effectively a mask. The eye stalks simply retracted to le into the ‘eye sockets’, and when it opes mouth to spew its sticky blue fluid, one could still see the moving crab mandibles inside. Mordecai’s avatar smirked wickedly as this inspired a final touch. There was enough spa the ‘skull’ to create several sets of small ptes that could grind against each other, much like certain is do, tuo harmoo a plex note of uhly beauty. The trast of the horrifying glimpse of mandibles inside of the open mouth with the nearly perfect sound was great for creating fused reas, and for a final touch, he made sure that the grinding process released the sharp, tangy st of lightning.

  There was no actual electricity involved beyond the normal funs of life, it just amused him to create the jumbled set of sensory signals to leave adventures jumpy and distracted.

  And with that, his crabbits were made. Mordecai’s smugness drew Kazue’s attention, and her fasated horror was a sublime pleasure to enjoy.

  He started teasing her about it when something caught his attention. One of the fairies had pried open a crabbits mouth to peer inside, and another fairy oking fingers into her own mouth before opening wide to waggle her tongue about. They took turns, and he could feel the little pulses of shape-ging magic as the fey creatures worked on being able to transform the inside of their mouths into the same mashing mandibles. It was easy to predict what was going to happehey mastered it, they were going to pete to see who could create the more horrifying mouth, like little kids making faces at each other.

  Their nature would probably leave them mostly harmless, but their tinued alterations of the initial shape-ging power that turhem into flowers for the first-floor challenge was being a touch w. The mushrs some of them could turn into didn’t actually do anythi, as far as he could tell, but it was still ing.

  Zagaroth