Mordecai had just started ying out the stohat would be the foundation of his entment when Kazue's worry caught his attention. With a sigh, he carefully put away his tools while his core began anizis, and then he moved his avatar up to their chambers.

  Where he found Satsuki helping Moriko and Kazue get dressed. He was just in time to hear her saying, "I should probably walk a little behind you two, as I'll be your attendant. I don't think I should py that role for Mordecai, it might have some other otations given our history. And there he is. Don't mind me dear, you go ahead a ged." She fihat with a smirk.

  He smirked bad shifted his outfit to the uniform that Kazue had designed for him. "Already dohank you."

  Satsuki pouted. "I fot you are using a limited avatar. It's too easy for you to ge outfits like that. Well, never mind, e o's get your wives ready to go. My dress should be fine for the role. Oh, don't look at me like that, we both know you 't afford the time and effort it would take to keep me from going, and look! I've hidden five of my tails so as to better look the part."

  The damn woman was right, leaving Mordecai with little recourse but to scowl briefly at her before he turo help Kazue adjust her dress.

  Moriko and Kazue's dresses were now all modified with the addition of extra padding around the shoulders and upper arms. The little dragons were gettier about cw trol, but they were still very excitable and their cws were sharp. Besides, the padded fabric was more easily patched or repced than aire dress. Especially one issioned from miles away.

  Once everyone was ready, they headed down to the shortcut entranear the base of the tree. All of them could fly, though for Satsuki that involved a brief invocation to cast a spell first, so there was o wait for a ptform to take them down. They had decided not to involve Fuyuko; they were only involving Carmil because time was short. After all, this was not a formal court.

  That shortcut took them to the feast hall, but that was not where they wao cross into Faerie. Instead, they took another shortcut, this oaking them to the top of the river zone and that was a safe location to make the crossing into Faerie from.

  On this side, the river did not split down into two tunnels. Instead, the entire area was one space with a single river winding through a forest of stactites and stagmites. Waiting for the group was a ferry crewed by some of their rabbit folk inhabitants. It was not their fastest option for traveling here, but this wasn't the sort of emergency that called for speed over de.

  While the ferry carried them down the river, Mordecai reviewed the memories stored in his core of how Carmil’s tense meeting was going.

  "I assure you that it was not the i of my Lord and Ladies to intrude upon the domain of your Lord and Lady," Carmil reassured Cliodhna. "It came as a surprise to us to realize where this ke exteo. The nature of our realm is somewhat plicated and the way it grows is hard to predict."

  The pale woman tapped her lips thoughtfully for a moment before she said, "That is very strange. Even stranger, I smell the life of the surface world here. Why would a domain of the surface wish to grow so deeply beh the ground?"

  "As I said," Carmil replied, "it is plicated. I think it would be best if my king and queens expihe situatiohey arrived. In the meantime, we have arranged for refreshments. If you would follow me please?"

  Carmil led Cliodhna away from the shore of the dark ke and up to the area that reflected the wetnds. Instead of a s, most of the zone was a series of ponds and intereg streams. Carmil instinctively found the one winding path that allowed oo walk all the way to the rge 'isnd' set in the ter of the space, whiow held a round table with five chairs.

  Naturally, their servers were bunkin, rabkin, and buzzkin. Cliodhna eyed the rabbit folk curiously and said, "They certainly look like they belong to the faerie realms, but they smell rather mortal. Only not quite mortal somehow. It's like their souls are just outside of the reach of death." Her hounds s the passing rabbit folk but stayed at their mistress's heels.

  "That is a fair assessment," Carmil said, "but as I said, our situation is plicated. Please, enjoy some mead. It's a local brew from the mortal side and we have both a young, sweet vintage avaible and a more well-aged wih a stronger bite." Which was literally true, even if the vintages iioheir own.

  "Curious. I should like to sample the sweet vintage first, but if my cup could be the stronger vintage I would appreciate it." While Cliodhna tasted the sweet vintage, raw bones with a bit of meat on them were offered for her hounds, who only ate when she nodded her approval. The bones were crafted of dungeon mana of course; meat was not one of the things traders generally brought.

  While Carmil tio py host, the ferry that carried the rest of them arrived at the first pond. Much as there was only one uninterrupted path to traverse on foot, there was only oh to go by water as well.

  As artistic as that was, it was also somewhat annoying. Mordecai made a mental o have some retractable bridges installed and possibly have some more als dug. There was no reason they couldn't ge the envirohat came to them.

  But now was the time to be serene and calm. Kazue was front aer of their formation, with Moriko to her left, Satsuki a few steps behind them, and Mordecai tht. They proceeded in this order oheir ferry had docked at the tral isnd where their guest awaited.

  Carmil introduced everyone formally and they all took their seats, with Carmil on Mordecai's right and Satsuki taking up an attendant's post by standing a little ways behind Kazue and Moriko.

  With the pleasantries cluded and drinks served for everyone, Cliodhna said, "The situation has gotten ever curiouser and curiouser. This realm's royalty sists of a mostly mortal kitsune whose soul is not in faerie, a simirly mostly mortal of mixed elven and human blood, and a mana struct of plex design that appears to be a human touched by both dragon and faerie power. Whose soul also resides in the mortal realm, I might add."

  That was an unfortably accurate assessment. "Well," Kazue said, "at least this means there is a limit to the infamy of our husband. We tell you the story ier detail if you desire, but the short of it is that Mordecai and I are both living dungeons with our souls sharing the same core. Moriko is our wife and first tractor and our souls are tied tightly together. Through a bination of circumstances and the twisted logic of faerie magic, the three of us were suddenly bestowed the titles of Faerie King and Queens. This faerie domain is a refle of our territory on the mortal side of the world, but it grows thly match what we design for our dungeon rather than being born directly of our will."

  "Our zone," Moriko added, "is a pseudo o as the challenge for our delvers. Kazue had just finished g the erritory and sculpting it into its basi along with adding some of the water we will hat was when she peeked over onto this side and found that the refle here turo a much darker vision."

  "Infamy?" Cliodhna asked. "This does sound like an iing story. But I find myself more immediately ed with the implications. I take it this area is different than your, um, zone I believe you called it, on the mortal side?"

  Mordeodded and said, "Yes. We have simuted a mixed wetnds enviro for this zone. And for the area above, we have a fairly straight river split into two paths, while here there is a single winding river."

  "So reted, but different. Do you know what you have pnned for your zone?"

  "That's, um, plicated," Kazue said. "I think you are ied in our zone in this dire, but we are growing both out along the surfad up from the surface. As for our zone going deep, we already io make the isnd at the end of the o zone volic so that we have hot springs there. So for the zone, we were going to grow the isnd and make aire volo-based advehere."

  Cliodhna frowned in mild fusion. "Hot springs? Calling a zone an 'advehis does not sound like what I know of dungeons. Though, I suppose I had already gathered that you were unusual. As for what might be reflected if you do create a territory themed around a volo, I have to admit that is tricky. The elemental realms do have some e to Faerie, but you seem to be wandering rather far afield already. There is some ce that you might ect to a realm normally bound to a hotter, less poputed world. The further you diverge from the spaces teaming with living, mortal souls, the further you diverge from Faerie."

  "I think we are going to have to work on sculpting our realm more deliberately," Mordecai said. "As we'd not been seeking to have this domain and activity here tributes minimally trowth as a dungeon, we've devoted minimal attention to the realm so far."

  "How do we do that?" Moriko asked.

  Kazue shook her head, "I'm not sure either, it's different enough from a dungeon I'm not sure what we really do."

  "It's outside of my experience as well," Mordecai said, "I just know that we should be able to trol it more."

  "How about this," Cliodhna said, "Why don't you three tell me your story over a meal, and I'll give you some advice from my experience. I am very curious to learn how the three of you came to your titles, cimed a faerie princess as your daughter, and why a ail is trying to disguise herself as your attendant."

  Mordecai g Satsuki who simply shrugged and said, "Well, I did try dear. Don't worry Cliodhna, there's nothing nefarious on my part. I've simply imposed myself in order to satiate my own curiosity and it's not like they could do much to stop me right now. So please, don't bme them for my as. Now, Mordecai luv, could I have a chair?"

  As she spoke, Satsuki let the rest of her tails show again with a small groan of mild pleasure. "Much better now. It always feels too straining to hide only some of my tails. Most of the time it's easier to appear fully human or such." She settled onto the freshly jured chair and spoke briefly to one of the bunkin to ask fss of the honey wine.

  "Well," Kazue said, "I think I should start, as it was my circumstahat began the of events that brought us together."

  Several hours ter and they were enjoying post-dessert drinks while Cliodhna processed the tale she'd just heard.

  "Lady Mericume," she said with a sigh, "is very ined to crossing boundaries. Your reination was, strictly speaking, something that should have been judged by Lord Yamaraja and overseen by Lady Kikoi Muerte. I am not certain it would have been approved, at least in this manner, but it is far too te for that now."

  Kazue shifted in her seat unfortably at that assessment.

  "However," Cliodhna said, "I think I now recall some of my sisters pining about the sudden workload caused by a rampaging dungeon. I was focused on a different world at the time, so I only heard about it sedhand. I suspect that there is still a bit of a backlog of souls to be reinated, as many would have been too young to be fairly judged."

  That refreshed Mordecai's guilt over his as and the results thereof.

  "Normally, my dy takes care of such reinations by finding pces where a child is wanted but could not be ceived without intervention, or sometimes by breathing life and an old soul into a newborn that would otherwise have passed without developing a soul of their own. I am going to be reending something different, though I do not know if my Lord and Lady will agree."

  Mordecai g his wives with a bit of before returning his attention to Cliodhna.

  She smiled at their sternation and said, "It should not be too hard a burden. The goal of such reinations is to not disrupt the world in a way that would prevent the formation of new souls. This clearly means that no souls would be reinated as dungeon inhabitants, given that those lives would already be f new souls. But for how vast your faerie realm is, it is rather empty at the moment, though I have no doubt you will be getting plenty of immigrants soon enough."

  Which Mordecai was of mixed feelings about; it would be distrag to mahem all but they also couldn't leave their realm empty like this.

  "We have a rare opportunity to readily clothe spirit and soul in living flesh through the simple process of sending them across the dark waters. My suggestion is that we ferry these souls through and give them newborn bodies of fey lineage, with their memories of their past lives repressed as normal. On this side, they will be met by female inhabitants or allegiant fey who are already pregnant, preferably with one or more partners, or by a bonded group that would otherwise be uo ceive."

  "A moment please," Mordecai said before ferring with his wives.

  "Kazue, Moriko," he sent to them, "I believe I see what she is seeking here. Through our people and the burden of taking care of this wave of newborns, a small measure of bance would be restored. But this is no small itment, if she reends this and all are agreed, we will be taking in these 'foundlings' for decades, if not turies, to e. It would be irresponsible to send more than we reasonably take care of at a time, so I expect it would be just enough each year for the burden to be felt and our resourotably taxed, but without overwhelming us."

  "So," Moriko replied in a teasing tone, "Once more we are burdened by the sins of our a pervert dungeon. Hmm. Well, I ot say I am thrilled by the idea, but I am at least open to it."

  "I kind of like the idea," Kazue said. " you imagine a bunkin couple with a faerie infant sharing a cradle with their own child? It would be adorable! I imagine such a couple would have to spend a lot of their time on this side though, which I guess would be part of the burden. So, yes, in cept. I'm guessing that we will o iate details ter."

  Mordeodded and looked back at Cliodhna. "We are tentatively open to the idea, but are not itting until a more formal agreement is reached."

  "Excellent!" she said then turo her hounds and whispered to them. The pair of spectral es rose to their feet and bounded off back to the dark sea. "They will carry my findings and my opinions back to our Lord and Lady. Now, I would like to see more of this dungeon of yours. I have never had cause to visit one when I have been in the mortal world, but I feel that I should learn more in case I o amend my suggestions."

  Zagaroth