While the monk was away, the dungeon cores did py. Mordecai amused himself with this thought as he set about finishing his part of the third level. It took two days because he wao make sure there was enough variability, not only creating five different ‘battlefields’ but putting in the effort to make the terrain automatically randomize between variations, then gee more rabbits to fulfill various roles so he could field differes of troops. Most bat sarios involved some bination of melee and raroops, but he also had setups for melee skirmishers who would dart in and out of reach to try and strike once before retreating, and mobile ranged skirmishers who fired on the move, making themselves difficult targets to nail down. This st was enhanced by having had the ce to analyze Brongrim’s flintlock. He ged the design a little bit for the smaller hands, and to not copy the markings, but it was basically the same design. It had also given him an idea for a different on, but that would have to wait.

  All of this required that he have more rabbit troops avaible to call upon than he’d actually use in battle under normal circumstances. Fortunately, they could do just that, as their double cave them double the capacity of a normal dungeon, and the warrens expanded and adjusted to aodate these new inhabitants. And while he was w on this, Kazue was w on her pys. She also wao make sure that she had a lot of variety. This didn’t cost them any mana really, so she was only limited by her imagination, though most of her viges were based on ses she remembered from pys she’d seen and stories she’d read, minus some of the steamier books.

  But now he needed a boss, aerrupted Kazue to help him out. “So, I’m looking for an iing warrior to ge things up. They’d be a rallying point for any soldiers who were not defeated; I’m going to keep that an ongoing thing. You take the bat route and try to skip fights, then it bites you ter. Now, unlike my previous two, I want this one able to dish out damage, but I don’t have any special ideas, so I thought I’d check with you first.”

  Kazue fidgeted as she thought, pying with her tails, but then an idea seemed to clid she gave him a big smile. “I got something, and I bet it will fuse most people too.” One of the blue rabbits she’d created early in her pying around with creatures appeared in the ter of the final battleground. “Her name is going to be Betty.”

  Mordecai eyed the little redhead, who was doing her best to maintain an i expression. “I’m a bad influence, aren’t I?”

  “Uhuh!” She agreed, then told him the rest of her idea. Oh, this was going to be fun. And he could even add a little bit. Ohey agreed on the cept, they started p all the mana they could into Betty, who rapidly began to grow, rearing back as her form shifted into a bipedal stance. Muscles rippled uhat soft fur, which grew thicker to form prote, and her front paws reformed into powerful hands. And before long she was done, and they smiled at their test boss.

  The Boung Blue Boxer Bunny, Beautiful Betty.

  She was fast and agile, striking with powerful puhat could graze oppos with sonic vibrations even if they missed. She could also el sonic strikes into led attacks. This was also where Mordecai put all of his traps, seeding the battleground with a wide variety of pressure ptes that Betty could inspicuously skip over with her hopping style of movement. He was getting kind of eager to see how his bat-focused creations would do in an actual fight, but he didn’t want any undeserved deaths either. The dungeoures might respawn, but they didn’t have a way to keep visitors from dying if things went badly. He should probably make sure this route had suffit warning for now.

  “Thank you, love,” Mordecai murmured as he pulled Kazue into a hug and gave her a kiss. “She’s perfect.” He smiled as she blushed, then snuggled into him. Those shy reas to simple affe would fade as she got more fortable, but he expected her cuddliness would increase.

  “Hmm,” she said thoughtfully. “We should have enough energy to make our fourth floor by tomorrow. What do you think?”

  He sidered their mana flow and nodded. “I agree, but I’d actually like to ask you to hold off. There’s a little bit I want to tidy up with what we have here, I think it’s worth the iment to improve a bit before we grow.”

  “Okay,” she replied, not too ed with rushing, then looked up at him with a half-lidded gaze. “So, what should we do until we have some more mana?” The question was followed by her biting her lower lip, and he couldn’t help but ugh. Then he gave her exactly the response she was looking for and they left Betty to get to know the troops ing to meet their new leader.

  …

  While curled up on Kazue's bed ter that evening, they discussed his ideas. “Well, I want to start with ing up our entrance. Your work oh sele chamber is perfect, but we still have just kind of a random cave in front of it. Since retty much ready to receive visitors, I was thinking we could push the entrance back to the edge of our territory, and maybe give it a fancy door. Then give the entrance area proper walls, and give them some ornate designs to hide entrao the warrens, which shouldn’t be too hard. I also was thinking of adding shrines dedicated to the Empyreal Pilrs. They should make people feel safer about trusting our iions, and the iion of people praying inside our territory should be a minor mana boost as well. Plus, this creates an opportunity for delvers to receive minor blessings.”

  Kazue thought about it, rolling onto her belly to kick her feet idly in the air. “Mmm, that sounds good. I e up with the art for it. I think we should include the elven gods too, we’re close enough I expect to see some of them. But what about the other pantheons? It’s not like there’s another living dungeon nearby, and I don’t eople to feel left out. I don’t think there’s enough space for shrines dedicated to everyone. Maybe we should create a bunch of little side rooms instead?”

  Mordeodded. “That’s a good idea,” he replied before catg a foot to briefly tickle it, causio yelp and fil. “We should also sider more tractors, like rangers and other travelers who might appreciate having a home base outside of a normal town.”

  He proved impervious to her attempts to retaliate by tig him back, so she resorted to biting his arm lightly befiving him her best gre. “You just want more wives. Maybe I could get some more husbands instead!”

  The insincere accusation made him ugh. “Yeah, sure. But seriously, I think we could form at least six more tracts, though at this point none of them could be as strong as Moriko. I was only able to form that tract because I was stro the time. And rather than wait to see if we e across someone we like, I figure ut up a sign over one of the tables saying we are looking for tractors aing up some requirements for anyone who wants to apply.”

  Kazue sat bad ed her tails around herself to begin nibbling on a tip thoughtfully. “I guess. I mean, from what you asked Moriko to do before, one of the things we want is people who briuff to us, so yeah, people good at finding and identifying rare stuff makes sense. But what do we really have to offer them?”

  Mordecai listed off bes, raising a finger for eae. “A safe home with a room desigo their specifications. Workspaces with nearly unlimited materials to experiment with, though they have to use ‘real’ materials to take anything out sihey ’t cim loot. Near immortality as a retirement pn, with the caveat that they have to stay here if they don’t want to age. Extra payments as avaible from prizes we colled trades we make. And something iing to do. For the right people, that’s enough.”

  The kitsune bli him, slightly damp tail fotten about. “Huh. Well, if you put it like that, I guess I see why adventurous types might like that, if money isn’t their main motivation. Um, so I guess applying should require them bringing us something new? What else?”

  That made him think for a bit. “My situation was different. I could only have a couple at first, and mostly just wanted people I could trust to help me defend myself if needed. Between Moriko and myself, you have tw protectors already, and your training is ing along well so you arely helpless either. Still, the trust part is important. Sure, if someourns traitor the tract will break the moment they make that decision, but that still prove dangerous. We could work on that a little by having them stay as a guest for at least a month, which will also help them find out if they live in a dungeon long term. Oh, how about this? All new tractors have to be approved by all current tractors in addition to us.”

  “I like it!” Kazue bounced slightly on the bed in her excitement. “We work on the exact w ter, but we make it a fancy bronze pque! Hmm, though we make gold now so if we embed it solidly in the wall we could make gold pques! Or would that be over the top? Yeah, too much. Let’s stick with bronze.” She nodded as if he’d had a ce to edge in a word there, his agreement taken franted.

  “Alright, that’s done for now.” Mordecai said, grinning at her. “I think I want to alter our ‘base’ area however. We could expand and divide what we’ve got going on here, and have the main hall where we meet people outside of our private chambers, and put all the corridors and rooms fuests, inhabitants, and most tractors brang off from there. Moriko stays on our side of course. Then we make our owral rooms a little smaller and cozier.”

  Red-tails swished as the eic young woman flopped forward onto her belly again. Mordecai was tent to just sit up against the pillows and watch her. He’d never uood why all the normal races always had individuals who o stantly move and fidget like that when talking and thinking. Although, races like gnomes defaulted to that sort of energy. Hmm. That seemed like the sort of thing he might have looked into before, but with so many of his memories still stored and pressed, it wasn't a detail he could recall readily.

  Mordecai dismissed the distrag train of thought aurned his attention to his wife and her adorable fidgeting. Kazue finally spoke up after sidering the idea for a while. “Okay, I think I see the idea, and it feels like I designate ahat big as a single se. Um, hmm, that seems like it’s going to take more energy to create each floor, but I agree, it should be worth it.”

  “I didn’t have a pn like this when I was first expanding, I just created areas that people requested and rarely moved them, just made sure things got ected with shortcuts where needed. But given all that I’ve experienced and a fresh start, it just seemed better to create a more tral unity.” He was happy she approved of the idea, she grew up in a small unity so if it made seo her then it robably the correct choice.

  Then a wave of flig emotions surged across their soul link, startling them and causing them to quickly switch their focus towards Moriko. Once he uood the situation however, Mordecai was quite pleased. He’d been quite willing to give her all the spad freedom she o make her own choice, but this had been the decision he’d been hoping she’d make, and Kazue was radiating a simir set of emotions. Then he realized she’d made that choice while slightly intoxicated and a bit worked up. That deserved a little reward in his opinion. Hmm.

  “Kazue, we o wait for some mana to recharge anyway, and you do seem to enjoy keeping ‘occupied’. Want to see if I arrange for us to visit our wife in her dreams?” If the prayer f in his mind worked, it would really o up the attention of their avatars, their core would still be aware of the dungeon itself. He took being pounced on and kissed as a ‘yes’.

  Zagaroth