Moriko couldn't help but be a tiny bit disappointed when Kazue mastered transf her wings; the show had beeertaining on more than one level. But amusement and lewding on her wife were going to have to wait. It was time to hit the road once more, this time with 'Ruby' in tow. She couldn't believe they were babysitting a princess who was getting over a breakup.

  They were still traveling along the coast, which gave them some opportuo practice their abilities with a reasonable amount of privacy. While any signifit river or cove would have at least a small fishing vilge nearby, it wasn't a great area for farming and there was little to no reason to build a town separate from the existilements. This meant there were rge areas where they could expect to only meet fellow travelers, and all they had to do was be far enough off the road to not be visible.

  Although, not being visible was harder than one might think, giveure of their new abilities. Kazue needed space to figure out how to fly with her wings, with enough room for Moriko to catch her when things went iably wrong.

  The kitsune also found that the fey pent fmour worked well with her talent fic that touched on the border of dreams ay, and many fey had an innate ability to unicate with spirits. She could still only have two bonded with her, but she could 'hear' them a bit more clearly. Being able to uand them better made Kazue happy, and she was certain that she'd be able to speak with most spirits more easily now.

  Princess Bridgette was already a sorceress, so from a certain point of view, this just gave her more magic to work with. But it did fvor her magiewhat, especially her jurations whiow were always of more fey variations of creatures she could already summon.

  She'd also never had a knack for any pnt-based spells before but now found herself able to quickly grow and manipute them, though only in a general sense. She could give them a dire or cause them to be extra thick brambles or vines, but only within the limitations of how they might normally grow in the right enviro. She couldn't sculpt them precisely.

  She could, however, make fl pnts briefly bloom with phoenix fire, the fmes blooming from the flower buds as they opehe bursts weren't particurly powerful, but they could be surprising and in the right circumstaneone might be surrounded by several flowers. And if she directed it carefully, she could also heal with the fmes. But both fire magid fey magic could be tricky and temperamental, mixing the two was best done well away from others. Besides, it wasn't like there were many phoenix-powered sorceresses about; her identity would be fairly easy to guess for ah suffit knowledge.

  Moriko leased with her boon as well. Okay, it ain to have to spend effort to walk like a normal person, but being able to run on air with such ease was exhirating. She couldn't truly fly, but she loved running anyway so this was fine by her. And really, all of her wind and air teiques came easier to her now, making her a fully aerial batant.

  Which was something that Kazue was a long way from. She was like a baby bird with all that fpping about, and there wasn't much Moriko could do to help her out, as her way of taking to the air was entirely different. This was Kazue's personal reason for wanting to practi private.

  She retty certain that Kazue could learn faster if she bonded with an air spirit for a few days, but the woman was rather relut to release either of her current spirits for fear that they might be a bit fragile, especially her liminal spirit.

  With their travel days shortened in order to aodate their training time, it took them over three weeks to make it to the signifit port. Kazue chose to not dispy her wings as a default to avoid drawing even more attention, at least for now. They weren't even hoping to avoid all notice, but there was o draw every eye while simply walking dowreet either.

  Moriko reserved a pair of rooms while the two redheads started off shopping, as they were both more enthusiastic about it than she was. Mind, Moriko enjoyed shopping plenty, but she did not have the level of enthusiasm that the other two had. She was also happy to see Kazue bonding with another friend. Being a dungeon had been hard oher social kitsune, and having this retionship with a peer seemed to be doing her a lot of good.

  The shopping highlighted a slight twist of irony; it was now easier for Moriko and Kazue to buy things than it was for 'Ruby'. Smaller items bought with were the same, but with their ented seals they were clearly well off and probably nobility, and one did not he seal in order to uand that much. The symbology was fairly straightforward and easily associated with the Azeria Mountain Dungeon, so setting up an order to be paid for when merdise reached the dungeon was easy.

  However, they avoided creating any immediate personal debts; turning oods now to be paid ter via an unverified seal was riskier than delivering goods to a known location to be purchased there, and they wao secure the reputation of their personal seals.

  They spent three days to rest aock before tinuing on, and Moriko was happy to use those few days of privacy to enjoy Kazue's pany more thhly. Camping out with Ruby did not leave quite enough privacy for intimate enters. In a rge group with tents ented to give more privacy, it would be a different matter, but her she nor Kazue felt fortable with the idea of having the princess isoted every night, so they were all sharing a rger tent where Ruby could have her own bedroll.

  They hadn't even ents when they had started their journey, but it was autumn now and nearing the equinox, which left the evenings a little chill. But Moriko did have hope they would make it bae before the first light snows, the mountains were already in sight and they would be turniward soon.

  She rather wished that they had a fourth traveling panion, someoo physically spar with. Moriko had practiced with her new abilities as much as she could, and she tested herself against the spells both of the other women could throw at her, but a more physical csh was what she o push herself and she could only get in a little bit of sparring while they were iy.

  Moriko was very much looking forward to being able to spar with Mordecai ay again, amongst other activities involving her husband. Really, as fun as it was to go on this tour of the try, most of the excitement seemed to be bae. Even the sewer was beginning to sound like an iing area.

  Mordecai and Kazue had spent the first week after opening up the earth zone upon expanding the uppermost sewer zone and evolving new inhabitants. The mana for this was fueled by the steady elimination of any anisms in the sewers that remained hostile after the duried to cim them.

  All the other minor creatures that they cimed were how the hostile ones were eliminated, with swarms of tiny crabs, slimes, and other sewer denizens roaming around to kill and devour everything in the sewer that had not bee part of the dungeon.

  Ohe sewers were tamed, they went to work on evolving their new inhabitants. The small slimes at the top of the sewers grew into nearly spherical shapes with a firm boundary, though still malleable. This outer skin could shift betweeured, smooth, sticky, slippery, and crystal-hard. This bined with the ability to trol their internal fluids and hydraulic pressure to make them into a very bouncy, mobile sort of slime. And floating in the ter of each was a crystal core - their heart and brain.

  In bat, they could fling themselves with cussive force at oppos, and their shape was malleable enough that they could form spikes or create a sharp edge around their ter and make themselves spin.

  These boung slimes were mostly translut, and would not be very bright at first. They didn't really feel pain, and fighting was more akin to a game for them, which made them hard to predict. Their intelled uanding would grow over time, but the smarter ones would also tend to migrate deeper into the dungeon as they grew stronger.

  Kazue spent an inordinate amount of time and effort making sure that the slimes naturally made cute sounds with every squish and bounce, and tweaked them to make sure that they each had three dimples to make a natural 'face' when their surface was rexed.

  The set of evolutions for the bouncers involved their internal chemistry and alchemy. When their surface was ruptured, their internal fluid would react with the air to create various effects, and the slimes were color-coded to match. Green for acid, red for fire, blue for cold, yellow fhtning, brown for toxic fumes, steel-gray for an explosion of crystal shards, bck for a sleep-indug gas, pink for an intoxig gas, and purple for a halluogen.

  Crag the core to kill one of these slimes without rupturing the skin was difficult, but there were both martial teiques and spells that could do so. The reward was the ability to safely collect a rge amount of the alchemical mixture inside of each slime. While the residue inside of a slime that had been ruptured certainly had alchemical uses, the inal fluid was much more potent.

  These slimes began showing up o a time amongst the inal bouncers but became more numerous as o deeper. At about the same time, crystal crabs began to show themselves. They were based on Crios's design, but were much smaller, beginning at about the size of a house cat aually getting as big as a rge dog. Though the shine of their crystal carapaces would give them away when they moved, they were very good at burrowing into the mud and ung an ambush from cle.

  But getting distracted too much by the potential ambush from below could be dangerous. The bunbee boss Queerix had a hive full of minions that she could send at delvers, and would present herself as a challenge before a team could pass on to the third sewer zone.

  Uhe normal bat route, the sewers did not have a differentiation in theme between zones, so the inhabitants that delvers would enter simply increased in variety and power. For the third zohe dungeon added mud slugs. Kazue was not initially thrilled by the idea, but Mordecai showed her an image of the mud-colored slugs with an adorable smiling fa the front. That made her giggle, even if there was a note of horror in her mental voice. She ceded after he added the idea of them making cute burbling sounds and occasional chirps of steam-like whistles.

  Mud slugs could spit globs of mud with enough force to knock oppos bad possibly make them fall over. That same mud also made it harder to get up again, and if given the opportunity the mud slugs would focus on a fallen foe, battering them with a tinual barrage of mud balls. In deeper zohe mud balls could also tain a rocky ter, be sticky, acidic, or any bination thereof. This was where the slimes also gaihe ability to shoot crystal shards that verted into the corresponding alchemical rea after they hit.

  The boss for this zone could be either Umbrowl or Annur, their new crystal elemental boss, though a suffit swarm of other creatures could suffice for a boss-tier enter.

  In the fourth sewer zohey added magic to the boung slimes. Mordecai and Kazue worked out a list of minor spells that could be used repeatedly and a smaller sele of more powerful spells that the bouncers could only use a few times. After that, they would o rest for a while to restore their mana pools before the more powerful spells could be used again.

  Each slime had access to one random minor spell and two of the more powerful spells, which drew on the same pool of mana. There was also no themiween the slime's alchemical properties and which spells they had access to, making enters with them more difficult to prepare for. The addition of magic for the bouncers was inspired by their spellslime, Aiden, who was the boss most likely to be entered for this zone. Saraag could also act as a boss here if he grew only one of his mushroom trees, and given that he was now a raid boss too he could form an appropriate number of mushroom trees to act as a boss for any deeper zones.

  The fifth sewer zone was easy to develop. The sewer already had mushrooms and other fungi, now they just had to ence the growth of mushrooms of the same sort that grew in the mushroom forest and have some of the giant trap door spiders from the mushroom forest immigrate too. Kstoria was quite fortable here, and Sporewhisp, their pixie-druid, didn't mind the space either and was quite happy to charge about on the back of Glimmermold, her pori boar mount and panion.

  The sixth ah sewer zones saw the introdu of s drakes and crabbits while the slimes became faster and stronger, and their colors no longer reflected their alchemical aspects.

  Jasi the naga, Kulle the kelpie, and Tohil the feathered serpent were willing to do their part as bosses of the sixth sewer zone as hough not eager. The same could be said for Nezha and Ysi, the masima dragon bosses of the wetnds.

  Carmil oher hand... Kazue and Mordecai didn't even bother asking. She might be their s witch, but her of them could imagine her fighting in a sewer for less than truly dire cause.

  While they now had the inhabitants for the sewer route worked out, only the upper levels were as plex as they wahe inal i of the sewer zone was simply an emergency kill zone, but with the boon Mordecai had chosen, there was a o make it a legitimate route. That did not mean it had to be easy.

  In fact, the finishing touches Mordecai added were potentially lethal traps. This part of the stru Kazue left in his hands, it was still not something she was ready to deal with. The only reason he was willing to add traps that would kill if they were not dealt with properly was their ability to rescue a person just at the edge of death, oher side. Which was going to be part of the restris for this route, but the annou of that was going to have to wait.

  Their attention had been caught by the arrival of an airship in a clearing just outside of the trading post. The airship had markings for Trionea, and it wasn't hard to guess who this visitor was going to be.

  Zagaroth