Mordecai shook off his thoughts about the fairies, he was in the middle of showing off the floor-building process to some of their guests after all.

  His part was almost done. First, he gave bunyips a nudge: If any of them started to feel their current zoo be fining their strength, they could travel down to the wetnds. They were still o their roles for it to e up anytime soon.

  A ype of drake: s drakes. Uhe modified river drakes that were adapting to silt and salt, the s drakes were going to be surface creatures, capable of dwelling and traveling in water, on nd, and up trees.

  The body pn was simple enough, making rge reptiles that were about as long as crocodiles but that stood four to five feet tall at the shoulder. Unlike crocodiles and alligators, the drakes had longer, more flexible necks and a much higher metabolism. Their feet were webbed and had powerful, hooked cws; this would ehem to both swim and climb with acrity.

  Their tails were slightly fttened from side-to-side, to be used to aid their swimming, but they also had small, sharp spines along much of their tail. The spines were desigo snap off easily and regrow, and carried a small amount of a paralytic toxin each. The toxin was also present in the drake’s saliva and could be ied from their cws as well.

  After a little more sideration of the results, Mordecai gave them three more abilities. The first was a breath on that bsted thick, visud over its targets and the ground. It g with disturbing tenacity, but shearing force made it instantly thin out, rendering it incredibly slippery.

  The wo abilities were appropriately scaled minics. In trast to the slippery mud of the breath on, the first spell fired out a web of sticky vihat could tangle or even immobilize a foe for up to a minute before the magic faded. The sed spell simply jured and flung a small glob of acid.

  And of course, the s drakes o be able to find their prey in the sy enviro. Enhanced vision, hearing, and sense of smell covered the basics, plus a sensitivity to vibrations ier and ground nearby.

  Now, bosses. Mordecai was going to let himself do something he wouldn’t normally do for a boss at this duier: he was going to make a true dragon. It would be a young one, just barely old enough to be sidered mostly an adult, but a dragon heless. The reason he wouldn’t normally do this is that it would trap the dragon at this stage of growth unless he had another young oake its pd migrated it down to a lower floor.

  But with this new growth pn Kazue had formed, they were going to be slowly making this zone deeper. If anything, this would accelerate the dragon’s growth rate, pared to a non-dungeon. So he started looking over all the river drakes that had been ready to migrate down, examining them to get a feel for whies would adapt best.

  In the end, he selected a mated pair. He’d inally been thinking of either a mud elemental or a sy version of a treant, but having a matg pair of bosses like this would be a nice ge and they both had suitable personalities.

  The pair made their way to the small, bri the end of the level to prepare for the transformation. Ohey were settled, he began his work. Finding the vestigial nubs trow into their legs wasn’t difficult, but it was signifitly more plicated to grow their wings. Their bodies slowly bulked out during the transformation and they gained a distined tail, though their final build was still going to be retively sleek.

  Now, for a breath on. He was building a variant of a masima dragon to make them suitable for a briny enviro, so he kept the attack the same: A narrow, caustic bst of salted water. While normal salt wasn’t terribly corrosive to flesh, some salts were and this bst used a trated amount of them. Their saliva was of a simir sistency, causing their bite and even their spit to be corrosive.

  And like all true dragons, they needed some pric. He started with the basics, allowing them to manipute water into bsting upward, creating a dangerous geyser that could batter those caught within, or create bsts that could knock foes away. As water-based dragons, the ability to call upon deep mists to cover the surface was a natural fit too. For a final touch, he added a spell that could create fresh or salt water in small amounts, and ahat could destroy all the water in a small area, which would also attempt to sap the moisture from living creatures.

  He threaded his attention through their bodies again, making small adjustments and fiuning their metabolism until he felt a subtle vibration as everything synergized and the menag aura of a true dragon began to ma around them. Perfect.

  He’d even been able to keep the senses and abilities of their river drake forms, and had been able to give that as a form that they could ge into, in addition to elven forms with aqua-blue hair that matched the color of their scales, and faded to an almost frosted white to match the scales of their undersides.

  They would be more powerful physical batants if he hadn’t given them quite so many abilities, but he felt this was the better choice for now. Their physical bat prowess would increase slowly as the dungeon grew outward, and the extra breadth of power would slow down their effective age as they had to catch up to the proper depth of power. It wasn’t the way it worked for normal dragons of course, but giving them more time to grow into the wisdom of older dragons seemed like it would be a good thing.

  Hmm, he should give them a slightly different species name. Eleasima dragons? Perhaps. Well, it would do as a pceholder at least. As for their personal names, he suggested Nezha for the male and Ysi for the female. It took them only a moment to fer and agree; like many of the inhabitants who hadn’t bee part of more plex social structures, they hadn’t really felt a stroo decide on a name before now. Over time, Mordecai expected that to ge, but sentience alone does not always imbue a strong desire for individuality. That usually takes exposure to enough social iions.

  Now it was Kazue’s turn.

  Kazue’s attention had been wandering from her husband’s work as she prepared for her own, so it took her a moment to re-examine everything he’d done and make sure they were on the same page, though she still wasirely sanguine about his crabbits. Moriko had promised to help her extrae sort of reveer.

  And back to the fairy that had been the focus of her attention. She’d finally nailed down how to sehe little shadow fairy, who was squirming guiltily now that Kazue could see her properly, “Now, why have you been trying to hide from me?” The fairy hadn’t actually left the dungeon at any point, just stepped slightly sideways into the shadow realm. But Kazue was still o figuring out how to see into the adjat yers of reality, evehey overpped her territory.

  The fey creature huffed, “You keep giving us b things to do. I’m not one of those ditzes, I don’t want to be stuck as a flower or selling stuff to idiots.”

  If Kazue had her avatar here, she would have smirked. She already had a position in mind that would be perfect, she just hadn’t figured out her didate until now, “Oh, I only e up with b jobs? I guess you wouldn’t be ied in being a wicked and clever s witch that messes with travelers then?”

  After a moment of silehe shadow fairy responded, “I’m listening.”

  “My game for this level is going to be that the townsfolk tell visitors that the only way to get through the s is to please the capricious witch of the s. The witch lives on an isnd that slides through the s waters, making her notoriously difficult to find, and there’s no telling what she might ask of strangers.”

  “Hmm,” The fairy thought about it for a moment, then asked, “Does that mean I would get a big form? I don’t want to be a normal human or elf either, I want to be a tall fairy. Oh, I want to be a really tall fairy, like, taller than your new orc dy friend.”

  Taller than Bellona? Yeah, Kazue retty sure she could mahat, “I’ll have to give it a try to make sure I make you quite that tall, but if I have trouble, I will at least make you as tall as I . And I think I give you the ability to ge to any size iween.”

  “And I get agic spells? And a familiar? Yes? Then I’m sold! Show me the way, boss dy! Oh, and my name is Carmil!”

  Kazue was kind of amused, this was absolutely the most irreverent of their inhabitants, but she also found it kind of endearing, “Alright, here’s where you o go.”

  After some discussions, Kazue modified three wisteria trees to grow in the sy enviro of the slow-drifting isnd, growing them at equal distances around the edge of the isnd. The bright purple colors of the tree trasted with the surrounding dark foliage, but the ‘weeping’ structure of the tree gave it the right atmosphere.

  Several wooden walkways meandered betweerees and the various buildings, which were themselves built in odd shapes and strangely proportiohe soft, muddy grouh the walkways was home to moss and fungi that made it look signifitly more solid than it was.

  With the basic design of her new home pleted, Carmil was eager to get her new abilities. Kazue started with the size-ging ability. She left the flower-shape aspect alo had already mutated into enabling a variety of purple flowers, and naturally, this included nightshade.

  Keeping the fairy’s ability to fly when she was fully sized required a little extra effort, but it wasn’t difficult since she wao keep the wings too. Carmil also wahe ability to freely ge her hair color ah, a demand that was easy to meet. For the moment the fairy settled on bck with streaks that faded from s-green on the edges to a bright, almost-glowing green at the ter. Kazue felt a little fused about how she felt about the colors. Part of her said it should be awful, but it was also fasating and kind of just worked for the shadow-touched fairy.

  Carmil also got a dress she could alter on the fly, and quickly settled on nearly-bck purple with dark red fringes and a bright red lining that would fsh occasionally from the inside of the sleeves or through the carefully ‘sshed’ hem. Also a pair of long boots with extra thick soles and a slight raise on the full-width heel. Kazue was beginning to suspect that this appearance was reted to Li’s influence; Mordecai had previously expihat Li’s shards existed in very differeies as well, but to the divinity, they all seemed like the same world so he made no differentiation. This was why he sometimes referenonsensical seeming things.

  Now for actual witchcraft. “We’re going to be filling the role of your patron, so your witch magibsp;will only work in duerritory until we’re much rger.” Only very powerful entities could normally act as a witch’s patron and empower their familiar, though a strong enough witch could bee their own patron, no longer requiring outside aid. Or bee a patron in their ht, but Kazue only knew of one example of that, albeit a terrifying example. “Do you have any ideas for a familiar?”

  “A coon of course,” Carmil said, “And I don’t want it to just be a tiny familiar, I want to have a big dragon I ride around on. Oh, and umbral of course. I gotta be able to shadow-jump with it!”

  Uh-huh. Kazue sidered that for a moment, this seemed more plicated than anything she and Mordecai had previously gone over, “Love, is this doable?”

  Mordecai’s presence filled the witch's hut as he sidered the question, “I think I do something simir. Mind if I take over for a moment?”

  Zagaroth