Moriko had speime wandering in a growing spiral around the dungeorance, in part to familiarize herself with the area, and in part to get a good, diverse sampling. She’d hung three small bags from her belt, one for pnt samples, one for rock samples, and one for i samples, which usually included a pnt sample or two. She also had a feer pouches she normally kept inse in, but she’d transferred those into small boxes she’d asked Kazue to make for her. These she used for individual soil samples.

  The cool air from the ret su felt nice, but she retty certain that meant she’d lost at least one night of sleep. The chi she’d gotten from Mordecai had helped refresh her, but over-boosting like that had left some side effects she was trying to work off, such as a little jittery jao her nerves, and this exploratory walk erfect for that. Eventually, she felt it was time to head ba, and double-checked the few snares she’d left out. Nothi, but that wasn’t surprising. By m she was expeg a few, and she’d set these to hopefully be nohal, so she’d o have bigger bags ready. Fortunately, she had a few iravel pack, as it turned out the dungeon couldn’t just hand her everything she needed. Seems she wasn’t able to cim dungeoed loot as a tractor.

  Whe back to the dungeon, the half-elf found several ges. Starting from just ihe entry, the ceiling was studded with a scattering of white crystals that gave off a soft glow, and which she found to tihrough the dungeon. And the back wall had been pushed bad reshaped into a semi-circle arg toward her. Through the doorway in the ter of the wall she could see the inside curve of the circle and a pedestal, and oher side of the entrance where she was at were tables inviting people to leave gifts. Well, that was certainly useful. The bag holding the is was the first to nd on a table; she’d beeedly cheg that it was drawn tightly enough pretty frequently. She had no real issues with bugs, but she didn’t really want unknown ones esg and crawling ohe other two bags shortly joihe first, and they all disappeared. Ah, wait, how was she - oh. The y bags appeared ba the table. Moriko guessed that they didn’t t as dungeon loot, sihey’d beeo begin with, and collected them for ter use.

  “Well, you two put your time to good work, which is great and all, but how do you wao proceed?” She asked as she walked into the circle and approached the pedestal. Kazue’s mental response was a little sleepy and distracted feeling, but the cept of left was there. Mordecai’s response was more direct, and sounded a bit amused.

  “Either path would actually work; as a tractor, the dungeon won’t hurt you, not even traps. You could hurt yourself if you tripped or walked into somepnately harmful to you, but everything else is safe. But the left-hand path is ihe easier ohough both are inplete right now. The yout’s done, we need tent still. e on in, we’re waiting for you.”

  Moriko eyed the two free-standing walls, then pushed the left button, to get treated to a det show as a stone wall slid into pce to cover the door behind her and the wall started spinning until the doorway tered on the left free-standing wall. This revealed another sliding stone wall that made a somewhat dramatic grinding sound as it slid out of the way smoothly. Wait, that didn’t make sense. “It’s not actually making that sound is it? That’s just for effect?”

  She’d expected the touugo e from Mordecai, but it was Kazue who was feeling self-satisfied. Must have been her who came up with it. Well, it was a ouch, potentially intimidating those who missed the distinuity between grinding sound and smooth movement, and then inf those who caught it that care had been put into this crafting. She gave the kitsual head pats, and smiled at the happy response.

  As the monk moved on through the straightforath, she saw what Mordecai had meant by needing tent. The rooms were empty except for the occasional ‘rabbit’ stig its head out of a hole to look at her curiously, though there were some markings on the ground and wall that Moriko guessed were some sort of notes for ter use. At the end of the path, she found a spiral staircase leading downward, and beyond that another room with a spinning wall that triggered automatically, letting her finally into the Core room.

  “You know, that walk is going to get tiresome after a while. Oh, and grats on starting on your sed floor, I think.” She said as she approached the pair snuggled on the cou the far er. That was oo. “Anything in particur I should know about?” Kazue’s tail shifted in a zy greeting, but the girl did not uncurl from Mordecai’s p.

  While she couldn’t really sleep, the part of Kazue’s mind that made decisions and used tration needed a break, so she just drifted in the warm fort of Mordecai’s embrace. It didn’t mean she wasn’t aware of what was going on, she just wasn’t thinking about any of it more than she had to. The part of herself that immediately started analyzing Moriko’s little gifts was essentially running on autopilot, since she wasn’t really deg on much.

  The pouch of is also taihe leaves and such that Moriko had used to scoop them up. The pnts were easier to analyze, so she did those first. Huh, the ‘grass’ she was growing was kind of just a pnt made in her mental image of grass, and she didn’t realize there were so many variations. And every leaf, stem, or stick she analyzed seemed to have the information for the whole pnt, letting her figure out how to rebuild it pletely.

  The is took a bit more time to figure out pletely. The way they used liquid pressure to move their bodies- oh, that was called hydraulics. She ulling that cept out from Mordecai’s store of knowledge, triggered by analyzing how it worked here. Okay, that was more information than she o knht now, and she just put it aside to tinue her work here.

  More pnt samples came in, and then mineral and soil samples too, and she went to work on them all. Everything that was aught her something, and it gave her a little boost of energy. Soon she found she knew more about pnt and i biology than she ever thought she would, and a limited uanding of geology to go with it.

  While she wasn’t direg anything specific to happen, her new knowledge synergized with her previous i wheing her dungeon, and the pnts and soils in the warrens ged to mesh with how things were supposed to work, rest a portion of the mana she had used to gee them as the life cycle began to work properly, with synergistisects spawning in the soil to support it.

  Kazue let herself be happy and tent just dwelling on her world w in harmony, though the empty rooms called for her attention too. Mmm, maybe in a bit, but something else was tugging at her attention. She focused on the room around her avatar, and bli Moriko and Mordecai as she tried to remember what she’d just heard. Moriko said something about taking a bath and then going to bed, but some pany wouldn’t be minded? Oh, and they were both looking at her.

  Kazue blushed and scrambled to her feet. “Oh, ah…” she could feel both of them were waiting on her decision, weling but not insisting. And, she wao, but.. “N, not yet I think.” She took a deep breath to calm herself. “I do think I’ll join, but, just, I think I need a bit more time.”

  “It’s okay, her one of us is going to rush you.” Mordecai murmured as he rose from the couch, then leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. “But you may want to distract yourself for a bit then.” Right, that robably a good idea. Moriko kissed her other cheek with a soft ‘good night’, and the two headed towards Moriko’s room. Yeah, distra, that's a good idea. Well, those rooms were calling for attention and she blinked, realizing that only the left-hand path o be filled out. Mordecai had grouped some of her bunnies by how they could fight and enced them to gather in those group types in the bat challeh. Well, she didn’t particurly want to deal with that anyway.

  So the kitsune made her way to the first room of the left-hand path and looked around as she decided what it would be. She finally decided on a meandering garden path with little side paths that created swirls and little private nooks, and added some benches here and there, making sure to start some fruit-bearing trees and bushes too. Hmm, it’d be o have some more variety. Well, maybe on Moriko’s rip outside. Oh, she almost fot! People might need some facilities! Let's add that he exit. Speaking of which, she needed some sort of puzzle or challenge. For now, she decided on a fairly simple oo the left side of the exit she created five small pedestals, each with a sb of different colored stone on top, and a small generic flower shape in the ter of the sb. She double-checked her garden and tweaked a few things, making sure there was a fl pnt with matg colors for each pedestal, and that each matg crew only at the end of one of the offshoot paths. If you want to tinue, you have to take the time to explore and appreciate her garden!

  Kazue used a somewhat simir cept for the sed room, only this time it was a hedge maze. Aware from the way Mordecai had set things up that people would sometimes cheat if they could, she made sure her hedges grew all the way to the ceiling! She also used multiple species, the ones growio the path were pretty and might have flowers or berries, but the ones growing in the ter of the hedge wall would be hard, thorny, awined with pnts like poison ivy. She didn’t want any cheaters!

  For the third room, she got a touch more whimsical. The overall theme seemed to be a fantastical flarden, with glowing butterflies flitting about fl pnts, trees, and bushes. he exit were seven sialk pnts that looked like they should have a flower, but did not. Careful observation would allow oo hat eat had a distinct appearance, and other pnts of a matg appearance had the same color flower. And the ‘butterflies’ were actually tiny faeries. The trick was to catch a properly colored faerie without hurting it and bring it to the right stalk, where it would turn into a flower.

  Now she was really getting into the idea, and created a more intricate puzzle for the fourth room, creating several springs and a lot of els and ways of diverting water into different els, some of them with hidden (but findable) ‘traps’ that would send water in ued dires. The puzzle was to divert water in the correct way to water all of the ‘withered’ pnts, which immediately spring to bloom when watered, and immediately wither when not watered.

  The fifth room bined all of these puzzles into ohere were more withered pnts than could be watered, but there was a tile set at the entrance giving you leaf shapes. So you had to figure out whits needed water, divert water to them, pare the now healthy pnt to simir oo figure out what color flower it was supposed to have, and then go catch a faerie t to that pnt and bee its flower.

  It was close t by the time she was done, and she happily wandered bato their core room to find Mordecai sitting in a meditative pose on the ground, though not for long as he opened his eyes at her approach. “M. You’ve been busy.”

  Zagaroth