Mordecai sidered his options. The individual pieces were quite doable. Evolving a creature into a very young umbral dragon of no more than human size would be easy enough, at that age it would still be notably weaker than the masima dragon bosses.

  Umbral drakes, which were actually a type of lesser dragon, were of the right size and power to be suitable for an advanced caster’s familiar much like some other lesser dragons.

  Creating a creature with the power of even a young umbral dragon but that could be tied to a familiar’s bond was more difficult, and adding the ability to bee that tiny didn’t actually make it easier. Hmm. ditions could restrict power, so what would make this iing? Aha.

  “I make that happen, with a limitation. Only one of you be full-sized. So when you are human-sized, your dragon would be fairy-sized, and the same in the opposite dire. But you both be about gnome-sized at the same time.”

  “Yes! I’ll take it!” The faerie woman danced about happily, “What’s , what’s ?!”

  Mordecai let Kazue take back over from here, it was her show for this area after all. He’d find a didate and evolve them while Kazue worked on the rest.

  “Well,” Kazue said, “Your familiar will act as yrimoire, so we o give you some spells. Your job is to challenge visitors and make them exert themselves, so you will be given a sele of spells to either hinder or aid delvers as you see fit, but nothing that harm them. Some, however, may greatly inveniehem. We’re going to do this right, so in order to study your spells and prepare whies you are ready to cast without notice, you have to work with him, and if he’s not avaible then you don’t have a grimoire until he is avaible.”

  “ht. What sort of challenges do you have in mind?”

  “Well, you get to be creative, but we have several ideas and will offer up more if we think of them. You get to decide whies to give, and are free to choose harder options for people you don’t like, you just ’t cause them any harm uhey get violent first. Now, some of the easier ones are simple tasks like finding a batch of herbs or finding some bit of jewelry that has been ‘lost’, or otherwise having them go out to find aething for you. To go with the theme of some old, traditional tales about witches, you also have them do tasks like ing and cooking, or perhaps eaining you with a song or a story.”

  “Okay, yeah, those are pretty easy I think,” Carmil said, nodding along.

  “Slightly harder than that might be for the delvers to go and find a missi, who could be ‘afraid’ and actively avoiding strangers or otherwise more difficult to obtain and bring back to them. I’ll also be bringing in some other inhabitants, so they might o vineoo loan something to you, or maybe they have to win a game of cards or dice against a particur group, or maybe they have to find a way to pay off a favor that you supposedly owe someohere’s a lot of options here. You also have them pay you with scrolls and books or whatever else you like. And instead of singing or telling a story, you have them make a work of art for you, or pose a new poem.”

  Kazue wao also make sure Carmil khe limits, “Now, we’re also going to give you the ability to sense how much a persroup has exerted themselves in your area, including the minimum amount to be allowed to pass up to the limit where you have to allow them to pass without further interferehe challenges here are a lot more fluid than in other locations, so eed task lists don’t really work, we just o have them push themselves about as much as people going through the bat route would.”

  “I do that,” The faerie said, looking thought, “Any challenge I like, right? I seduce them?”

  The question caught Kazue off guard, and it took her a moment to reply in a flustered tone, “Er, what do you know about, ah, sedug people and such?”

  “Oh, I’ve spied on the people in the inns topside, most of us have. The other faeries mostly thought the big folk looked and sounded funny, but I thought it looked fun and iing,” she grinned impishly, “Though I admit it was often funny too.”

  “Right, I’m going to have to do something about that. Now, um, hang out and explore or something, we’re going to have to talk about this before we give you an answer.”

  She, Mordecai, Moriko, and through Moriko, Kazue’s avatar spent almost an hour discussing the ethivolved, with Mordecai’s avatar occasionally asking questions of some of their more trusted guests to get a gauge on how others might feel. When they were done, Kazue presented Carmil with their answer.

  “Yes, with caveats. First of all, it ever be a demand, it must be an option, and you ’t press the person hard or punish them for saying no. Sed, if there is a group that is together, then you only offer the option to the entire group, not including ‘panions’ that don’t t against the party size limit, and you have to treat them equally enthusiastically. So you probably shouldn’t offer if you aren’t ied in one or more of them. Third, if they initiate without a hint or prompting, then it doesn’t t unless you want it to. Also, it ts as eaining you, so if you areertaihen they failed. And finally, you ’t make it a challenge for more than one in ten people roups that e through the level, though once a persroup has reached their goal and you have officially told them that they are free to pass through to the end of the zone, you still offer anyone you like to stay with you. This doesn’t have the other restris, that’s just you on your free time. But no matter what, you have to be avaible to offer challeo other delvers, even if you have to interrupt your other activities.”

  “Eh,” Carmil scratched at her nose, “I guess that’s fair. I just gotta figure out who is worth it to.”

  “Ah, yes, um, so from what you said before that, you arely experienced,” Not that Kazue was much of oo talk, less than half a year a go Kazue was just as inexperienced, “As long as no one is around, you head top side a people and such, but you have to shape away your wings and be disguised as a visitor for now. Then, you know, fewer mistakes when being the s witd all. I mean, it sort of depends on what you eople to think of you, but scary s witd novice seductress sort of csh.” Holy, Kazue would be happier if Carmil wasn’t going this route, but she also didn’t want to interfere too much with how inhabitants led their lives or did their jobs. And she had to admit that sultry seductress did fit the scary witch image too, it just wasn’t what she was imagining when she came up with the idea.

  They wereirely done, but Carmil wao get to know the area for a little bit before they spruced up her home more, partially because she didirely know what she wanted yet. So Kazue shifted her attention to the barrier separating the two parts of the zone, having already handed off the task of keeping the faeries from spying on their guests to Mordecai. She copied and tihe growth, but this time she grew it along the edge of the ke until it reached the cave wall, pletely closing off her side from the end of the zone. She then grew a rge patch of the impassible growth in that er against the wall, the about strug the dungeon magic that would attach the creation of a passage to Carmil’s aowledgment of a party’s success.

  However, the winding passage wouldn’t go all the way through at o would open with just enough room for the group to fortably fit while leaving a couple of meters of pathway behind them. Theh would start closing up behind them as more opened up in front of them. Kazue was mindful of Mordecai’s advice that there was always someone who would decide to try and cheat if it looked easy to do so, so it was generally best to not let them cheat to begin with.

  The path led to a narrow ledge at this end of the ke, and the growth here thinned enough to let travelers see the ke and any fights that might be taking pce while also proteg them from it. And that ledge e a doorway that opened up to the same chamber that the ‘boss door’ led to, which theo the corridor headed to the arena and the feast hall.

  Throughout the zone, she started creating small huts, hidden tree houses, and the occasional homey burrow in the roots of a tree rge enough to have created solid, if damp, ground, and other little pces to be occupied. She didn’t designate any particur creatures to these areas, instead, she created a special sort of role for whatever inhabitants were taking a turn here. It ackage that included telekiic ‘hands’, the ability to speak magically for those few creatures they hadn’t mao make good voice boxes for, and a few other utilities to make them operate in a rough approximation of how most people on the surface lived. Throughout the various abodes she now scattered some roof card packs, dice sets, bags htly colored marbles, and the boards and pieces for various pames. They were probably also going to want a lot of things like pots and pans and most certainly furniture, but a lot of that could be easily crafted by other inhabitants and fill out more naturally. Kazue just wao get enough stuff to create the image of ‘monster’ people kig bad pying games or otherwise doing social stuff when delvers approached them to fulfill whatever tasks the witch had given them. And it would be a good pce for some of their inhabitants to rex outside of the warrens.

  Also, she wao eventually have this suite of abilities avaible to everyone who could use it, but it tied up a lot of mana just making it a role-specifitle for the zone. So for now she just had to be satisfied with what she’d created.

  And of course, she o create natural treasures to be found, in addition to rewards for tasks done. As usual, pnts with useful properties were an easy one, but she needed more. Thankfully, they also had some other resources to put in pce, for those with a good eye. The areas of the wetnds closest to the walls were drier and a little higher, and she chose a few ses to make into different rare colored cy.

  And in that cy could be found various uncut gems and minerals: tourmaline, iolite, machite, jasper, and opal. Nothing quite as fancy as the dwarven opal they had received, but these were all minerals that could form in d mud. Especially the opals, which could form in any sort of wet, sedimentary enviro.

  Now, to the town at the start of the zone. Mm, it was time to get creative. They had bunkin from the dire rabbits, rabkin from the rabbats, now it was time to make buzzkin from the bunbees. She had sidered beekin, but that souoo much like bea.

  There were not a lot of them ied in the role. The way that they had been designed early on made them still ined troup behavior even now that they were se. But there were a feere a little distent with their role in the hierarchy, aher she nor Mordecai had done much to create a path for them to advan. It was time to ge that.

  She started w on the evolution process while those bunbees who were ied gathered together in Ston. When she was dohe dungeon had a third of ganthros. Their overall design was much like the bunkin and rabkin, but they retaihe bd yellow stripes and some other bee features such as antenna, and instead of a rabbit tail they had a small bee-like bulb, plete with a stinger. Kazue had altered them to live and breed like mammals again, includi milk produ instead of honey and they could not secrete wax.

  They were not limited to this town, and were in fact free to work in any of the positions that their kin occupied, so long as all the necessary roles were covered by people with the appropriate skills. But this gave them a starting point.

  Now for the roles and rules. This was to operate much like the keside town in the river zone, but with some differences. While s boats and other such services were avaible for the bat side, part of the challenge here was to navigate the wetnds. You could build your own, fe or buy materials, etc., but the townsfolk were officially under a ‘geas’ that would ‘curse’ them if they provided vessels uides into the witch's territory. Those who sought to curry her favor so that they might pass through the wetnds must do sh their own resourcefulness.

  Mm, and one final touch: Kazue took advantage of the fact that the faeries were already pro mushroom circles, and recruited Saraag to help her. Whenever a circle formed on this half of the zoepping into it would trigger a teleport with just enough dey to potentially cat entire party, depending on the size of the ring. The default was to teleport them to another, rand, and bs would bee inactive for an hour. Where Saraag came in was to create direal teleports. The mushroom boss already had tendrils throughout the wetnds, so he could simply grow ara, crystalline mushroom at the edge of the ring that poi another ring, however distant, and that would direct the teleport there instead of making it random.

  She also added a rule that let him reactivate rings whenever he liked, so long as no delvers were within teers. For that matter, n could bee active if there were delvers within teers, they had to have some ce to spot and avoid the ring.

  By the time Kazue was done, Carmil had her familiar, an umbral dragon/drake named Udup.

  Zagaroth